Albertina Sisulu, Leader of Apartheid Fight, Transitions

Albertina Sisulu, Who Helped Lead Apartheid Fight, Dies at 92

By BARRY BEARAK
Published: June 5, 2011
New York Times
JOHANNESBURG — Albertina Sisulu, considered by many to be the mother of South Africa’s liberation struggle, a woman who was hounded and jailed by the apartheid government but who lived to see her children assume leadership roles in a democratic nation, died here on Thursday. She was 92.

Siphiwe Sibeko/Associated Press
Albertina Sisulu with Nelson Mandela in 2005.

Mrs. Sisulu’s passing extinguishes another light of a generation that fought one of the great moral battles of the 20th century. Since her death, virtually every one of this nation’s leaders have come to her home to offer condolences. Only Nelson Mandela has been conspicuously absent. He is increasingly frail, and members of the Sisulu family visited him instead.

A humble but forceful woman, Mrs. Sisulu was the widow of Walter Sisulu, one of Mr. Mandela’s earliest political mentors, who died in 2003. She kept her dignity through decades of government harassment. Mr. Sisulu was imprisoned for 26 years, and she herself was repeatedly jailed, held incommunicado and “banned,” a restriction limiting where she could go and how many people she could see.

“But try as they might, they could not break her spirit, they could not make her bitter, they could not defeat her love,” Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said in one of the many tributes offered after her death.

Nontsikelelo Thethiwe was born into a poor farming family in the Transkei, a former British protectorate that is now part of Eastern Cape Province. When she enrolled in a school run by missionaries, she was given a list of Christian names to chose from and selected Albertina.

Her father died when she was 11, and poverty might have kept her from finishing her education had she not won a scholarship to a Roman Catholic secondary school. After graduation, she accepted the advice of an admired priest and moved to Johannesburg to study nursing, a career that offered a small salary as she apprenticed.

In 1941, she was training at the Non-European General Hospital when she met Mr. Sisulu, a political activist with the African National Congress. Their courtship would be her political awakening. They married three years later. Nelson Mandela was best man at the ceremony.

In his autobiography, Mr. Mandela describes Albertina as a “wise and wonderful presence.” At the Sisulus’ wedding reception, he wrote, an A.N.C. stalwart warned the bride, “Albertina, you have married a married man: Walter married politics before he met you.”

She, in turn, was marrying the liberation movement. The Sisulus’ home in the Orlando area of Soweto became a central meeting place for the robust discussions that shaped the direction of the A.N.C. She combined her work as a visiting nurse with the distribution of political pamphlets.
On Aug. 9, 1956, Mrs. Sisulu was a leader of a historic march by 20,000 women against the nation’s pass laws, which restricted the movements of blacks. One slogan from the protest was, “You strike a woman, you strike a rock.” Aug. 9 is now celebrated in South Africa as Women’s Day.

Walter Sisulu would go on to head the A.N.C., and later, along with Mr. Mandela and others, create an armed wing of the organization. The Sisulus’ relationship has been celebrated in South Africa as a great love story, but during the first 20 years of their marriage, he was so often in jail or on the run that the couple barely spent 9 years together.

Once, in 1963, when the police failed to locate her husband, they seized Mrs. Sisulu instead, arresting her while she was treating patients. She was placed in solitary confinement under a notorious law that allowed detention for 90 days without charges.

“There was nothing to read, nothing to do, nothing to occupy my mind—nothing except to think of what was happening to my children at home,” she recalled in a 2002 biography written by her daughter-in-law, Elinor Sisulu.

The couple had five children and raised three more who belonged to Mr. Sisulu’s deceased sister. Unknown to Mrs. Sisulu, after she was jailed, her 17-year-old son Max was arrested and held under the same law.

In 1964, Mr. Sisulu was sentenced to life imprisonment, serving most of his time, like Mr. Mandela, on Robben Island. Mrs. Sisulu was banned for 10 years. Her children either went into exile or entered boarding school.

As the decades passed, MaSisulu, as she was affectionately called, was frequently arrested, locked up for infractions as slight as attending the funeral of a friend. Her children faced similar harassment.

“I did not mind going to jail myself, and I had to learn to cope without Walter,” Mrs. Sisulu once said. “But when my children went to jail, I felt that the Boers were breaking me at the knees.”

Nevertheless, her political activities continued. In 1983, she became one of the founders of the United Democratic Front, a powerful antiapartheid coalition that brought together religious, labor and student groups.

In July 1989, she led a delegation on an overseas mission, arguing for sanctions against the apartheid government. She met with President George H. W. Bush and former President Jimmy Carter. She dined with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

The days of racist oppression were drawing to a close. That October, Mr. Sisulu was set free; Mr. Mandela would be released four months later.

In 1994, with multiracial democracy finally having replaced white domination, Mrs. Sisulu was elected to Parliament. She served for four years, retiring from politics though remaining active in social causes.

The Sisulu family, for so long badgered and humiliated, is now a political dynasty. Her daughter Lindiwe Sisulu is the nation’s defense minister. Her son Max is speaker of the National Assembly. Another daughter, Beryl Sisulu, is South Africa’s ambassador to Norway. She is also survived by her son Zwelakhe Sisulu and daughter Nkuli Sisulu.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: June 6, 2011


Because of an editing error, an earlier version misstated Mrs. Sisulu's relationship to three children she and her husband raised. They were the children of Mr. Sisulu's deceased sister, not Mrs. Sisulu's sister.

Jasper Texas Poem and Apology for Slavery Proclamation

TREK ON THE JASPER TRAIL

On June 7, 1998 in Jasper, Texas a Black man, James Byrd Jr. was severely beaten, chained to a pick-up truck and dragged to his dismemberment and death. His head was severed after one mile while his torso was dragged for an additional two miles. Three crackers with links to the KKK and Aryan nation were held responsible. Dr. Daniel Kunene (Emeritus Prof. U.W. Madison) author of Heroic Poetry of the Basotho, Chaka (translation of the famous novel by Thomas Mofolo). Pirates Have Become Our Kings, From the Pit of Hell to the Spring of Life, The Zulu Novels of C.L.S. Nyembezi and The Rock at the Corner of My Heart wrote the following poem in memory of this horrific event.

Dr. Daniel Kunene, poet

In the first mile of the Jasper trail
the texas sun shines uncommonly bright
does not once blink
while the truck rattles on

in the cabin:
“do you still
go out with annie mcguire?”

“O ya! nice lass
nice ass”

In the second mile of the Jasper trail
the sun listens
a cow bellows
a rancher cracks his whip

behind the truck
HE sees sparks and a million stars
lighting up the endless firmament
MY GOD! MY GOD! WHY DO YOU FORSAKE ME?
then
darkness

inside the cabin
annie mcguire has come alive
and a young man besmears his pants
at the mere thought of annie mcguire

In the third mile of the Jasper trail
the shooting stars have died into their ashes
and the shadows around the sun
have crowded together to cover its face
from the shame

inside the cabin:
“I wonder how the nigger is doing back there”

A crow caws
and instantly the air is choked with cawing crows
that have suddenly filled the sky
for midnight has descended on the Jasper trail
yet the young men in the truck fail to see
the eclipse
the chaos

they stop
they come out
“I feel sick Bob!”

“don’t be a squeam Ricky
aren’t you a Texan?”

“what’s a squeam Bob?
I’m going to throw up Bob!”

“ah, go puke you jellybelly
I’ll go empty my bladder over him”

Somewhere
a Spirit that escaped
in the moment of decapitation
at the last crossroad
cries
“Forgive them
for they know not what they do”

(c) 1999 by Daniel P. Kunene



Berkeley Juneteenth Slave Apology Proclamation

Supervisor Keith Carson and President Nate Miley are authors of a Slave Apology Proclamation,scheduled to be adopted on Tuesday, June 7, 2011, at approximately 10:45am at the regularlyscheduled Board of Supervisors meeting, at 1221 Oak Street, 5th floor, Oakland, CA.

The resolution recommends that the Board adopt a resolution apologizing for the enslavement andracial segregation of African Americans, and calls for economic reparations benefiting African Americans, in health, education and housing programs.

The proclamation acknowledges the brutality of slavery, described as “involuntary servitude,” and the resulting disparities it created. The “separate but equal” Jim Crow era was described as “the lingering after effect of slavery” which created enormous tangible and intangible damage and loss of dignity and liberty. The resolution also recommends that state and federal governments issue a similar formal policy and recommit to bringing an end to racial prejudices, disparities and injustices in our society, and says that in order to promote healing and reconciliation, the injustices need to be identified.

The resolution will be accepted by Delores Cooper Edwards, representing Berkeley Juneteenth Association, Inc. (BJAI), an organization who for the past 24 years has held Freedom Day celebrations which honor African American heritage and commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery.

Edwards says she initially had reservations about the resolution, saying: “How can this apology undo the impact slavery had on the entire fabric of America?” But says the apology should serve as “a reminder that the fight for freedom and equality is continuous.” Edwards say she will accept the apology not only for African American citizens, “but for all citizens of Alameda County, regardless of complexion, group, or language,” quoting President John Kennedy: “Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free.”

BJAI will read the resolution in its entirety at its annual Juneteenth celebration scheduled for Sunday, June 26, 2011, 10am-6pm on Alcatraz @ Adeline, in the city of Berkeley. After the Festival, the resolution will be placed in the organization’s historical archives.

America, Stark Raving Mad

America, Stark Raving Mad

"It's a wonder we all haven't gone stark raving mad."
--James Baldwin, interview with Marvin X, 1968


We know murder can become an addiction, the murderer actually gets high killing. So imagine the psycho-pathological mentality of the American military killing around the world. Wars and proxy wars, from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, and elsewhere, some places we know nothing about and shall never know, but the US killers are on the move, spreading mayhem across the globe, with over one hundred bases in nations with the primary motive of securing free market capitalism at the point of a gun, tanks, planes, drones, etc.

Again, once the killer starts it is hard to stop, to withdraw, to end the occupation.
America is due to exit Iraq this year but don't believe the hype. As we said months ago, the war in Iraq hasn't started. The US mass murder was only a dress rehearsal. If and when the US retreats, the Sunnis and Shia will engage in a battle with regional implications. The Saudis have been deeply involved it insuring the continuation of the Sunni insurgency. The Saudis lead the pack of Sunnis who have every intention of never allowing a functioning Shia government, after all, they are considered heretics of the first order, additionally, they are considered puppets of Iran, another Shia nation with mythological goals of expansion from the Tigress and Euphrates to the Mediterranean.

Of course don't leave out Israel in this equation. She has united with the Saudis to block Shia expansion. Israel is already hemmed in on one side by Shia supported Hamas in Gaza and Iranian proxi Hezbollah in Lebanon.

And so we should expect the war in Iraq to continue, perhaps in a low intensity manner, but war none the less. And war is hell, the blood, breaking of bones, wailing of women, the raping and torture. Trillions of dollars gone down the drain so retired Generals in the US can make a few billion as CEOs of defense related corporations.

Of course war is only politics by other means, thus the real insanity is in the political structure, an entity totally under the control of special interest groups or lobbyists who care nothing about people, only fees from those they advocate. They are so sick with it, they will advocate for dog catchers, men with boys, or any project for profit. And so we have the insanity of the best democracy money can buy.

Our President is securely in the hands of Wall Street. He is their mascot, a man of supposed intelligence, but more in line with the great capitulators in history. He accepted insults from Zionist Netanyahu that hurt to watch. How could a real black man allow a white man to insult him in the White House before the entire world. He must be a sick puppy. The most powerful man in the world is a wimp.

I asked a friend of mine with contacts at the White House, who is Obama? My friend is 73 years old. He replied, "You don't want to know the answer to that question. If I tell you, you won't live to be 73!"

The mental health of America is deteriorating at a rapid pace. The babies talk of killing, the youth are killing. Babies two years old must be removed from child care centers due to sexual assault. Five year old girls are banned from child care because of lesbian sexual activity. Apparently, the sexual identity crisis is full blown. Boys who aren't gay, sound gay. A young man said, "My friends sound gay because they have never heard a man's voice."

The sexual identity crisis is only part of the general mental breakdown. We have a society with more than 14 million people unemployed and there isn't a job program under discussion by the Government. We assume the unemployed are expendable in the global free market capitalist order. The capitalist say, "We have a bountiful field of workers in China and India. To Hell with high priced American workers." Yes, the capitalist swine will kill their mothers for a profit. The profit motive has driven America, in the words of Baldwin, "...to rationalizations so fantastic it approaches the pathological...."
--Marvin X

Suheir Hammad

“INTO EGYPT” BY SUHEIR HAMMAD // 02.03.11
BYFEN


tunisians started it. egyptians followed. palestinian-american suheir hammad wrote to it. we have to remind one another that art endures. we hope you find light in suheir’s words:

into egypt

to be ready
you will want beauty
as your face
you will want to greet the day with a heart
you will wish was open
you will want to be brave
and you only fear
want belief in anything
and everything is doubt
when there is light finally you might squint
the sight of it all might make you

steady you will want
a vision ahead
redemptive dissonance
music for the end of
chorus for the coming of
manifest hum into hymn
the noise of it rivers you
you will cry water into flames
vulture your own heart to feed

you will want to love your self
at all enough you will want
to flee and forget the leaving
will have to leap still wanting
you will want to wait for witness
you will want to wait for those already gone
you will want until you are want
you will want until
you are ready

>via: http://www.fenmag.com/2011/02/03/into-egypt-suheir-hammad/



__________________________



6QS WITH POET SUHEIR HAMMAD // 11.22.09


BYMARWA


Suheir Hammad needs no introduction. You’ve seen her bust a verse on Russel Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, moving a nation with her post-9/11 poem, “First Writing Since.” And she recently starred in the groundbreaking film Salt of This Sea. But more than that, her poems aren’t merely read or heard–as one reader at a recent reading of her new work breaking poems put it, they are ones we “bear witness to.” FEN had the honor of getting these six questions in with her afterwards:


STATS:
ice cream: Tropical sorbet
song lyric: “As” by Stevie Wonder
superhero: The Universe

1. Did you get support or resistance from your family when you started your career?
There wasn’t resistance from just my family and there’s wasn’t support from just one place. As a woman, the life-choice to be an artist, isn’t nurtured in any of the communities I engage with. And that’s where artists have to push their voice, through the resistance.

I COMMITTED MYSELF TO MY CRAFT. AND IN A WAY, THE CHOICE WAS MADE FOR ME.

There was a tipping or turning point where I looked forward, and back, and decided I would work to be more honest and a better poet. That’s what poetry is. It’s about the human endeavor.

2. What are your influences and motivators?
Curiosity. There’s a specific kind of dysfunction in it. It has the ability to carry you to one place while it gets you stuck in some other places.

3. What’s missing from the Arab-American art scene in your mind?
I wouldn’t say there is a scene. We have disparate aesthetics, influences and ideas. And it seems like we’re all dealing with the same themes from different angles.

EVERY ARTIST NEEDS TO FIGURE OUT THEIR IDENTITY AND WHAT THEIR AESTHETIC IS.

My father raised me as a Palestinian in America not Arab-American. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I saw myself as Arab-American. So we need to rethink how language invites or excludes members of a community.

4. Tell us about making the transition from performing spoken word to acting.
I never wanted to act–never had that hunger to be on stage. It never fed me artistically or spiritually. But for something that I never wanted to do, I learned so much. And art is a self-study, and you have to continue to redefine yourself.

5. What obstacles have you run into and how have you overcome them?
There’s a tension between my personal definition and the inspiration for why I do what I do, and what the external world tells you to do. Along the way, you grow up. You figure out what you want to do. There’s always going to be that mystery. And that’s when I go back to the page. Poetry is there for me to work these things out–in craft and theme.

6. What’s your advice for aspiring artists?
Be the best artist you can be.

YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE YOU’RE CREATING AND BE THE BEST CREATOR THAT YOU CAN.

There’s nothing more important than your commitment to your craft. And everyone has a different road to being the best artist they can be.





>via: http://www.fenmag.com/2009/11/22/six-questions-with-suheir-hammad/





__________________________



VIDEO: SUHEIR HAMMAD: POEMS OF WAR, PEACE, WOMEN, POWER // 02.09.11
BYFEN



In the same way that we can count on Egyptians to stay in Midan Tahrir night after night, we can count on Suheir Hammad to deliver. Again and again. Press play and know that what you hear is true.

>via: http://www.fenmag.com/2011/02/09/video-suheir-hammad-poems-of-war-peace-women...
via vimeo.com

Poems from a student to Marvin X

June 2011, & X @ 67
Posted on June 4, 2011 by anzinga







June 2011

Superman went home

followed by Geronimo Pratt

Tears and struggle

from Harlem to Tanzania

Souls set free from heavy bodies

X’s wisdom brightens the midnight sky

in Babylon as

we remember Sun Ra

in the laughter of the living

Lupe proves it ain’t all a fiasco

Gil Scott and Plato’s Cave

revolutionary lessons

never televised

but still in syndication

Students remember teachers



X @ 67 Baba turned 67

his children forgave him

he may eventually forgive himself

but bless the demons that chase him

keep him pouring out

look may he flow forth

we were born &

will no doubt die

thirsty

keep him pouring out

long may he flow forth

keep him pouring out

bless his mama

living brightly in his memory

may she forgive him for

ignoring her at least this once

we worthless negroes are blessed

because

he has never left us alone

in his journey from miscreant to itinerant poet

he grew towards Mt. Thai & he wrote maps

so we could follow as he turned away from feathers

remembered how to talk to cows

learned from falling down

the value of things he never owned

sharpening his pen to sword point

bargained his soul back from the devil

for poems in the name of his grandchildren

as his students watched

they learned to plant seeds

we know you were here

you have carved on souls

in a forest that plants trees as it burns

in life’s fire all is clean

all is new again

Sun Ra never died he ascended

as you have

standing there in the light

sun over your left shoulder

forever in your righted eyes

bless us as

we present flowers to the living

Understanding White Supremacy in the Present Era

Understanding White Supremacy in the Present Era

Forget that post-black, post racism poppycock. Forget the first black president mirage, the illusion that imperialism and raw, naked capitalism cannot have a black face, kinder, gentler, yet the same motherfuckin bullshit from yesterday, just covered over with a light black face, one acceptable to the white masters and deceptible to the black masses, so gullible emotionally they will go for fried ice cream and purchasing the Brooklyn Bridge in one sale.

Thank God Master Fard Muhammad was able to trick us out of tricknology by entering our homes selling red silk cloth, yes, that same red in the flag that was used to march us through the jungle of Africa to the shores where we passed through the door of no return and boarded the Good Ship Jesus to the hell hole called America.

We must fully understanding that White Supremacy is cunning and vile, a drug so subtle that the entire world has become under its addiction. And yet it is a full blown illusion, yet so intractable

that it ensnares men, women and children of every ethnic group around the planet. Call it cultural imperialism, the dissemination of values that brainwash entire nations that become mental if not physical slaves of the dominate culture.

But it is in the superstructure, the laws and mores of White Supremacy, i.e. lunacy, that the victims become so utterly entrapped that we cannot imagine there are at least two laws operating in the White Supremacy slave system: one for the masters and one for the slaves.

Our poor ghetto brothers and sisters would never fully understand there are two laws or the application of said laws, depending on whether one lives in the hood or in the suburbs. In the hood there are numerous check point charlies where one is stopped regularly for any infraction. In the police state of New York City, blacks are stopped at the whim of "community police" and randomly checked for drugs, guns, probation or parole violations.

Now we have lived in the suburbs so we know the difference. We lived in a town called Castro Valley for a time at the pleasure of my patron, a rich black brother who had a son out of control at the loss of his mother due to cancer. The youth had a car with no license, no insurance, no tags, but was stopped speeding on several occasions. He was not arrested, ticketed or did he have his car taken. The police simply called his father and told him to come get his son, and the boy went home.

As I was the only adult at the house, virtually a mansion in this exclusive area, the youth had a party, but when neighbors called the police, they arrived but only wanted to know if an adult was in the house. When they saw me, they said thank you and good night, even though the youth were indeed doing drugs and drinking alcohol. The officers said, Good night, sir!

In employment, we have black people going totally insane due to discrimination on the job, especially when they are doubly qualified but are passed over continuously for advancement.

Even in education our children are told they cannot learn, thus they drop out or are pushed out because after being dumbed down, they lower the test scores and the resultant funding of the school district. Yet, we have the recent case of a young man in a dental assistant program who repeatedly received the highest test scores but was repeatedly overlooked when cash prizes were given out for the highest test score. This is the type of blatant discrimination we must endure of a daily basis in this so called Obamian Post-Black/racism era.

During my imprisonment for refusing to fight in Vietnam, I had a job in the yard office of looking up prisoners when they had a visit, so I had access to their files containing their offence and sentencing. I saw that a black bank robber got seven years on the average and a white bank robber three years. Need I say more? If you don't get it you ain't gonna get it, so why persist and prolong this conversation.

Sometimes it doesn't matter where we live, the result can be the same if we are black, witness the treatment given Harvard Professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates when he failed the tone test. In the hood the tone test is when encountering the police, depending on one's tone of voice, one can be arrested, released or killed. Imagine the innumerable blacks who failed the test. And black parents are guilty of not teaching their children, especially their sons, the tone test.

But alas, the tone test transcends the police, when encountering another black, we must exercise caution with our tone of voice, otherwise we may suffer the same fate as with the police. Depending on your tone of voice, another black may want to take you out, but ironically, no matter how disrespectful a white man may be, he ain't thinking about taking out no white man.

This is a case of what Dr. Nathan Hare calls Type II White Supremacy, the self hate variety, the misplaced aggression type. Another example of this behavior is when the community becomes enraged when the police kill us but when us kill us there is no similar response, no rallies, no march, no protest, only silent night.

The prescription is for us to recover from Type II White Supremacy, the self hate variety, so that we can have power over Type I, or rather, it shall have no power over us, once we detox and recover from Type II. See my book How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, A Pan African Twelve Step Model, Black Bird Press, 2007. The entire book is available to download for free: http://www.firstpoetschurch.blogspot.com/

Geronimo Pratt and High Blood Pressure

High Blood Pressure and North American Africans

Although we don’t know all the facts, high blood pressure is suspected in the death of our dear revolutionary comrade Geronimo Pratt, who died in our Motherland Africa, on Thursday. We loved our brother for his revolutionary legacy that included spending 27 years behind bars, partly because a faction of the Black Panther Party would not come forward to testify that he was in Oakland at the time he supposedly murdered a white woman on a Los Angeles tennis court.

The FBI also had wiretaps to prove he was at a BPP meeting in Oakland, but they refused to submit their evidence since it was not in their Cointelpro handbook (Counter Intelligence Program to disrupt the Black Liberation Movement, especially any leader, large or small, capable of inspiring the masses with the ideology of revolution). For sure, they took out Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Others they jailed or forced into exile or into drugs and insanity.

Geronimo Pratt (Imagine Obama and the Imperialists used the code name Geronimo to assassinate Osama bin Laden) was finally released from prison after 27 years, after claiming innocence throughout his incarceration.

The last time we saw him at a public event in San Francisco, he confessed he was not taking his high blood pressure medication. (Again, I am stopping to take mine as I write!).Geronimo is a classic example of behavior practiced by a large number of North American Africans, no matter what class or caste, educated or uneducated.

We know that even those North American Africans with full health insurance do not take full advantage of it. Whether it is due to our long history of Medical Apartheid (see the book by the same title—and we are advised not to read this book alone) that has made us righteously fearful of the medical establishment, known to be another enemy of our people, due to forced experiments throughout slavery and after, including the Tuskegee experiment on black people who were subjected to syphilis, or the simple fact we live in a hostile environment that breeds high blood pressure from stress that many of us are in denial about, or simply ignorant about, thus we check out prematurely or sometimes it is a form of suicide to escape the stress. The hostile environment on the job, in the home, in the streets, is simply too damn much. We treated like a nigguh on the job, at the club, church, home, yes, by wife, husband, children, so we want out. Thus, we neglect our health, our medication, are appointments at the doctor.

I am guilty of missing appointments, after appointments, after appointments. Sometimes I take my high blood pressure medication and sometimes I don’t.

But let’s move from condition to prescription. Firstly, we know that we must remove the stress from our lives. I try to live in the No Stress Zone. I try not to worry about nothing.
Do the birds and bees worry about tomorrow? One day at a time. Few of us can deal with a 24 hour period of time, so why do we worry about what happened yesterday and what shall happen tomorrow? Some of us, and sometimes I am guilty as well, worry about matters when the solution has arrived! The problem has been solved, yet we worry!

Now something is very, very wrong with this picture. Somebody needs their head examined. Somebody needs a healing! But let’s be real, what is the solution to our conundrum? A woman at a program to feed the homeless said they have instituted blood pressure screening at the feedings. This is a nice step.

But it seems to me the only lasting solution would be for our people to possess a hand carried device, similar to a watch or cell phone, or perhaps as part of the cell phone since they are so smart we can pay our bills with them, surely they can be instructed to test blood pressure on North American Africans, so we can monitor our blood pressure 24/7.

We suffer too much stress for random or periodic monitoring. It must be 24/7. It was just revealed that even our children are suffering high blood pressure as well, so the problem is pandemic, intergenerational, thus it must be addressed with a solution that will encompass the entire community. If you see another way, a better way, please let me know.

We were so blessed to have Minister of Defense Geronimo in our midst, and we shall miss him dearly. But let us learn from him and honor him by doing the right thing, continue the struggle for national liberation and check our blood pressure. Peace and love.
--Marvin X
6/7/11

Africa for the Africans

By Glen Ford
June 02, 2011 - BlackAgendaReport.com.

As far as the United States and Europe are concerned, Africans have nothing to say about what happens in Africa. South African President Jacob Zuma made a second trip to Libya this week, on behalf of the African Uni0n, seeking a diplomatic end to NATO’s war against Mouammar Gaddafi’s government. Just as with a previous African Uni0n peace keeping mission, back in early April, Col. Gaddafi agreed to the peace plan. And just as before, the so-called rebels and their American and European bosses refused even to consider a cease fire. As has been obvious from the beginning of this “humanitarian” farce, the Great White Fathers of Europe and the “Wall Street mascot” from the United States, as Obama has been called, will be satisfied with nothing less than regime change in Libya – and to Hell with what Africans think!

The Euro-Americans will soon prove just as contemptuous of their erstwhile North African Arab allies, based in Benghazi, who claim to be leading a “revolution” against Gaddafi. But these rebels lost their legitimacy the second they decided to become the ground troops for a neocolonial invasion of North Africa. Revolutionaries fight the Power. The gang from Benghazi are mere pawns of imperialism and have no credibility whatsoever as revolutionaries. This is an imperialist war, fought for imperial objectives. The rebels have chosen to become imperialism’s mascots, waiting like pitiful little Gunga Dins for the British and French to arrive with attack helicopters to burn and kill their countrymen.

NATO orders their Libyan minions around like children. NATO recently “issued instructions” that the rebels not move beyond certain points in the desert, so as not to enter the killing fields that the rich white fathers – plus Obama – are preparing to incinerate Libyan government soldiers. Naturally, the rebels will do exactly as they are told, since this is not their revolution. Rather, Libya is the front line of the European and American counter-revolution. The chain of command reaches to Paris, London and Washington. Benghazi has reverted to the colonial outpost that it was when the Italians ruled – only now, in the 21st century, all of the Europeans plus the Americans get to lord over the Libyans, who grin and skin while thanking the colonizers for coming back to save Africa from the Africans.

And so it makes perfect sense that a peace proposal from the president of South Africa, Black Africa's most powerful and wealthy country, acting on behalf of the organization that includes every nation on the continent, counts for less than nothing in the imperial scheme of things. The West encourages South African President Jacob Zuma to help bring chaotic Black countries into line, but Zuma and the African Uni0n are not authorized to interfere with imperial wars on the continent. That's “white folks business.”

When the Western attack helicopters arrive, the Benghazi-based rebels will cheer, as if they won something. The Gunga Dins should carefully study those helicopters and their awesome firepower, because those guns will one day likely be turned against them. The U.S. and Europe have no intention of allowing Libyans to rule Libya. And after all, why should the imperialists hand over all that oil to a bunch of local flunkies who couldn't even fight their own war.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.


Comment by Marvin X

It is indeed sad to see Africans disrespected in this era, but Nkruma told us neo-colonialism is colonialism playing possum. To transcend neo-colonalism one must smash imperialism hook, line and sinker. And we must see Obama without rose colored glasses, as Glen Ford suggests, the Wall Street mascot, a little puppy dog, i.e., running dog, who tries to run free but the leash yanks him back under the full control of his master (s).

Only a total break from the West by the non-white world will suffice, and even then we must be vigilant of the Afro-Asian-Indigenous world because we all have our national agendas, some open, some hidden. We all move first and last in our interests. Elijah said trust no one, but even his best student, Malcolm X, missed the lesson, alas, he trusted Elijah and was totally demoralized at Elijah's supposed lack of morals.

One thing the lowest Crack head learns is that he cannot trust his own mind, for he realizes most profoundly even his own mind is capable of playing tricks on him. He hears knocks on the door when no one is there. He hears the leaves on the tree and believes he hears people in conversation about him. He hears his friends in another room talking and is convinced they are plotting to kill him. Trust no one, not even your own self! The Bible tells us to win a war one needs many advisors.

Elijah told us the white man is the devil, but we're so smart to think it's only a certain class of them. Christ Rock said he's a rich nigguh but the lowest white man don't wanna be Christ Rock! Europe and Euro-Americans suffer a sickness so pervasive it is constitutional, and even the Big Book in recovery says those in this condition are unable to recover, even after detoxification and a long term program. Thus, the more white people change, the more they stay the same.

You may say we're the same, we're so addicted to white supremacy type II (Dr. Nathan Hare) that we refuse to believe our neighbor next door is harboring a kidnapped child and fathering children by her. We are astounded to believe such.
And yet, another neighbor has a group home that is similar, and he's African, but has a baby farm. Such was discovered in Nigeria recently.

Only a tsunami, an earthquake off the Richter scale will suffice to alter the world's spiritual paradigm of nothingness and dread, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. We must transcend the Sisyphean myth-ritual of eternal damnation, mentally unable to reach the mountain top that Martin Luther King, Jr. claimed he achieved. If he made it, why not every man?

No matter the behavior of Europeans and Euro-Americans, the universe is clearly moving in the direction to make matters right. The spirit of justice and righteousness is in the air, the water, the land, the trees. Man shall either get in harmony or suffer the consequences. We see the mighty Mississippi River rising to consume all in her path. We see the devastating power of tornadoes in the midwest. Shall we all go down because of arrogance, greed, niggardliness, slothful thinking, evil intentions, or simply claiming ignorance that shall be unacceptable and inexcusible in the just universe that is at our door step.
--Marvin X
6/5/11

Goodbye, Gil Scott at Harlem's Riverside Church

Anna Webber/GettyScott-

Heron performs during the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival 2010.

Corey Sipkin/News

Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets leaves Gil Scott-Heron's memorial at Riverside Church Thursday.

Family, celebrities pay tribute to Gil Scott-Heron at music legend's memorial; Kanye West performs

BY Michael J. Feeney
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, June 2nd 2011, 8:51 PM


Corey Sipkin/News

Kanye West leaves the service from a side door after his surprise performance.

Gil Scott-Heron's daughter proclaimed the revolution will be televised during a moving memorial service Thursday for her musical father that included a surprise performance by rapper Kanye West.

Scott-Heron, a celebrated poet and musician, was remembered by about 300 close friends and family scattered throughout Harlem's historic Riverside Church Thursday. He was 62 when he died last Friday.

"It was honoring and celebrating him," said his daughter, Gia, 31, after the service. "When we came in, what we wanted to do was honor daddy."

And she certainly did.

She performed an original poem, called "Time" and sang Bette Midler's "The Rose."

"But because he was before his time, and because time is unfair...We weren't even aware, that his time was up!" she said in her poem. "But time can never diminish the bonds of unconditional love! So though your demise is publicized, this new revolution will be televised."

Her father leaves behind a 40-year musical legacy that included such songs as "We Almost Lost Detroit" and "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," which was recorded at a club on W. 125th St. and Lenox Ave.

The world-renowned spoken word artist is also credited with inspiring a slew of hip-hop artists, such as West, and some have dubbed him the "Godfather of Rap."

West, wearing all black and sporting a pair of dark sunglasses, closed out the tribute by performing his song "Lost in the World" - which features a portion of Scott-Heron's "Comment # 1.

Also in attendance was Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets, the 1970s Harlem group that inspired Scott-Heron and also helped set the stage for hip-hop.

Speakers included his first wife, Brenda Sykes, who reminisced about NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar introducing her to Scott-Heron, the birth of their daughter and Scott-Heron's close relationship with Stevie Wonder.

Wonder, she said, always wanted to dance on stage, but never trusted anyone to keep him from bumping into something. But Wonder trusted Scott-Heron, said his wife of 10 years.

"Gil led Stevie in a conga line," said Sykes, adding that the pair toured together and joined forces to help create the federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The program for the memorial listed Wonder as an honorary pallbearer, but the superstar musician was not in attendance.

Scott-Heron will be buried at Kensico Cemetery in Westchester County.

His book publisher and longtime friend Jamie Byng called the service "beautiful.

"Gil would have really loved it," he said. "I thought it was a really beautiful service. It was a celebration and also a tribute - and a mourning. I enjoyed it...We all wanted to hear his voice."

Black Panther Geronimo Pratt Transitions to Ancestors

Black Panther Leader Geronimo Pratt Dies In Tanzania

Associated Press on June 3, 2011


LOS ANGELES — Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt, a former Black Panther Party leader who spent 27 years in prison on a murder conviction that was later overturned, has died. He was 63.

Pratt died at his home in a small village in Tanzania, where he had lived for at least half a decade, lawyer Stuart Hanlon, who helped Pratt win his freedom, told The Associated Press from San Francisco on Thursday.

Pratt was a former high ranking member of the Black Panther Party. He was targeted by the FBI program COINTELPRO, which aimed to “neutralize Pratt as an effective BPP functionary.”

In 1970 Pratt was arrested and charged with murder and kidnapping. Pratt’s conviction was vacated on June 10, 1997, on the grounds that the prosecution had concealed evidence that might have exonerated the defendant. Pratt continued to work on behalf of men and women believed to be wrongfully incarcerated until his death, including participation in rallies in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, whom he had met when both were active as Black Panthers. Geronimo was living in Tanzania at the time of his death.

Hanlon said he learned of Pratt’s death through the former activist’s family members. He did not know what caused Pratt’s death, but said he had suffered from high blood pressure.

Hanlon said Pratt refused to carry any resentment about his treatment by the legal system.

“He had no anger, he had no bitterness, he had no desire for revenge. He wanted to resume his life and have children,” he said. “He would never look back.”

The Los Angeles Times, which first reported Pratt’s death, quoted a family member as saying he died Thursday.

Pratt was convicted in 1972 of being one of two men who robbed and fatally shot schoolteacher Caroline Olsen on a Santa Monica tennis court in December 1968. No one else was arrested.

Pratt claimed he was in Oakland for Black Panther meetings the day of the murder, and that FBI agents and police hid and possibly destroyed wiretap evidence that would prove it.

His lawyers, who included high-profile defense attorney Johnnie Cochran, blamed his arrest on a politically charged campaign by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI against the Black Panthers and other perceived enemies of the U.S. government.

Pratt’s belated reversal of fortune came with the disclosure that a key prosecution witness hid the fact he was an ex-felon and a police informant.

Superior Court Judge Everett Dickey granted him a new trial in June 1997, saying the credibility of prosecution witness Julius Butler — who testified that Pratt had confessed to him — could have been undermined if the jury had known of his relationship with law enforcement. He was freed later that month.

Cochran, best known representing such clients as O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson, called the day Pratt’s freedom was secured “the happiest day of my life practicing law.”

Prosecutors announced two years after the conviction was overturned that they would abandon efforts to retry him.

“I feel relieved that the L.A. DA’s office has finally come to their senses in this respect,” Pratt said at the time. “But, I am not relieved in that they did not come clean all the way in exposing their complicity with this frame-up, this 27-year trauma.”

He settled a false imprisonment and civil rights lawsuit against the FBI and city of Los Angeles for $4.5 million in 2000.

Comment by Marvin X

We mourn the transition of Geronimo Pratt. He was a warrior of the highest degree for Black Liberation. He was a longtime associate of Eldridge Cleaver who communicated with him during his 27 years of confinement. Geronimo has a child by Cleaver's daughter, Joju. Perhaps the last time he was in the Bay Area he spoke of his high blood pressure, saying he was guilty of not dealing with it. I'm taking my pills as I write.

FYI, the FBI continued spying on Geronimo during his confinement, using a Black Panther visitor as an informant. The person confessed to him upon his release and he forgave the person as he did those involved in the assassination of Black Panther leaders Alprentis Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, including US leader,Maulana Karenga. His spirit of reconciliation must be emulated by those in the Black Liberation Movement today.

G, we love you and shall miss you, but we know your position with the ancestors is secure. As-Salaam-Alaikum.
6/3/11

$50 Million Suit Over Malcolm X Bio

$50M SUIT OVER MALCOLM X BIO

NEWARK, NJ - On what would have been the 86th birthday of Malcolm X, criminal defense attorney and former Plainfield, NJ Mayor Mark Fury filed a $50 Million lawsuit against Columbia University, Viking Press and the estate of Manning Marable regarding Marable’s posthumously published biography, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention.”

Fury is representing former Nation of Islam Minister Linward X Cathcart in the lawsuit filed in Newark federal court.

In his book, Marable suggests Cathcart “may have been involved in the murder” or worse, physically supervised the assassination of Malcolm X on the night of February 21, 1965 in the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.

The author also wrote that “Malcolm appears to have begun an illicit sexual affair with an eighteen year-old” secretary, and that both Mr. Cathcart and Malcolm X were involved with that same woman, right up to the night of Malcolm’s assassination. Mr. Cathcart vehemently denies these allegations.

Mr. Cathcart was seated in the auditorium the night Malcolm X was killed. “Mr. Cathcart was the only person searched at the door of the Audubon that night. He was permitted a seat down front because of his close relationship with Malcolm. He came, as did several hundred others, to hear what Malcolm had to say about his separation from the Nation of Islam and his plans for the Organization of African American Unity (OAAU).

“Within 24 hours of the shooting, Mr. Cathcart was among the first to be interviewed by the FBI. They found no evidence of his involvement. From that time to the present, no one has offered any basis for the scurrilous claims in Manning Marable’s book,” attorney Mark Fury said.

According to the 500-plus page volume, (which sat on Marable’s shelf for 30 years before being rushed to press after the author was diagnosed with a terminal lung disease in 2010) Mr. Cathcart and Malcolm X shared the previously mentioned girlfriend that Mr. Cathcart actually did not formally meet until after the death of Malcolm X.

Manning Marable suggests that Malcolm X was both a homosexual and a whore-monger; that his wife Betty Shabazz slept with other men during their marriage with the knowledge and consent of Malcolm X, and that his alleged mistress “may have” spent the night with him in a hotel on the night before his death.

“This egregious twisting of facts, the licentious use of innuendo and the proliferation of outright lies is beneath the dignity of the late professor and the institution that helped him research and finance this project for more than 30 years”, said Fury. “There is no basis for any of these statements or conclusions. This book is a libelous, slanderous attack on several of the most important figures in American history (the writer also raises serious questions about the motives and credibility of the co-author of “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” Alex Haley). Everyone should feel cheated and attacked, not just Malcolm enthusiasts or even just African Americans. This is an attack on all of us,” Fury said.

Hamza Khatib, the Middle East's Emmett Till

Hamza Khatib was used as target practice. The bullets were not used to kill Hamza but to torture him. Imagine anyone being shot repeatedly in the arms and legs just because someone felt like it – now imagine that “anyone” be a frightened thirteen year old whose only fault was expressing, in the only way that he knows, his opinion in a country where that luxury is not given.

Hamza Khatib was castrated and his hands, feet, and abdomen were severely beaten. Overall, men in power who don’t care about him being so young and innocent subjected this teenager, for a period of well over a month, to most signs of abuse and torture imaginable.

Hamza Khatib and Emmett Til, two teenagers worlds apart, yet both suffered crucifixion at the hands of a society afraid of its shadow, let alone its children. The majority in the Middle East are children, thus the nature of his brutal murder reveals how dictatorial regimes fear the generation bound to replace them, unless these children are turned around, i.e., aborted, reactified, incarcerated or assassinated. Hamza and Emmett were not wanted simply because they were free beings, exercising the freedom of youth.

The power of youth cannot be eternally suppressed, maybe for a time the will participate in reactionary behavior, but once they see the light, we know the result, we see it in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Syria. Syria has long been a police state, a brutal regime that tolerated no opposition whatsoever.

My son Darrel/Abdul (RIP), won a Fulbright Fellowship to the University of Damascus. He told me what he endured as a young student, how the secret police interrogated him almost daily. Why was he going to the American Embassy to swim? Why was he hanging around those filthy Palestinians? He said there were Africans in Syria who are virtual slaves since their passports were taken, thus they cannot leave. Of course my dear friend Dr. Mohja Kahf has informed us of the terror in Syria. She recently sent out a passionate video reading her poem My People Are Rising!

Dr. Mohja Kahf,

Syrian-American

poet/novelist/professor

We salute the people of Syria, now led with inspiration from the child martyr of their revolution, Hamza Khatib. The murder of Emmett Till advaced Black liberation, let Hamza advance the liberation of Syria and the Middle East. "A child shall lead them."
--Marvin X

1/2/11

Happy Birthday and Happy Father's Day

Children and Grandchildren of
Marvin X












I thank my father for not disappearing, but forever remaining present in my life. I was exposed to healthy eating, good restaurants and my favorite Indian food from my father. I fell in love with the absorption of news, lectures and the pursuit of intellectual knowledge from my father. I gained my boldness that is sometimes offensive to the timid of heart from my father.

He didn’t provide financial support to his children, but I do not hold any grudges against him for what he did not do. I embrace all that he did do for my siblings and me. I cannot change the past, but I am thankful for what was invested into my life through him. I was able to experience his life which provided a strong foundation for me to embrace my rich cultural heritage.

I challenge people to learn how to embrace the essence of the beauty that we each have to offer. There will not be one person on this earth that you love everything that the individual has to offer. By loving my father, I have learned to embrace that which is beautiful about him, and that which I disagree with, is not a hindrance to our continued love. I see so much dissension in our world because individuals don’t share a person’s political, religious or other ideological perspective and as a result the entire person is vilified. Human beings are complex, especially the mature, the learned and those who are seeking to grow. Just as there are many pieces of me to love, there are just as many pieces of me to loathe. My father has helped me to understand how a person pushes his essence forward and exists as he is, and you can either chose to love or depart. I have chosen to love him for being bold enough to be who he is, as complicated as this can be. This is the essence of love. It is easy to love the loveable, but we begin to reflect the beauty of God’s light and love when we can love that which is unloveable in others.

My father has challenged me to be free to be me, to seek truth, to seek knowledge, and to do my “thang” following the bliss that God and I have outlined, not according to anyone else’s standard, and for that I love you.

Nefertitti Jackmon is a writer, nonprofit consultant/organizer and educator who resides in Houston, Texas. She is also the oldest of Marvin X's three daughters, along with Muhammida and Amira. He also has a son, Marvin K. Another son, Darrel/Abdul, made his transition in 2002 at 38 years old.

America, A Nation of Profiteers and Blood Suckers of the Poor

Bernie Madoff, the Grand Wizard of Profiteering











America, A nation of profiteers


The economic foundation of America began with the profit motive above all others. Even freedom morphed into the free market economy, thus everything in America can be sold for a proper price. The supreme commodity was, of course, human beings or the African chattel slaves, personal property slaves or more properly, those human beings caught up into the slave system. There availability as human beings for personal property of the slave owning class, including those wonderful, freedom loving founding fathers, Washington, Jefferson, et al., contradicts all verbiage and declarations to the contrary concerning freedom, justice, liberty and equality.

James Baldwin told me in a 1968 interview at his New York apartment, "We're the only thing that happened here, nothing else happened here but us. And it's a wonder we all haven't gone stark raving mad." This was an awful indictment of the American slave system. For sure, in a slave society, the slave is the reason for the season. Even the master is ultimately subservient to the slave, although he imagines otherwise. He may initially profit from the slave, but in the end the "hunter is captured by the game." There is no slave in his right mind who does not envision overthrowing his master.

And yet at the present moment, the North American African is the vital commodity, worth between $50,000 to $200,000 (juveniles) per inmate per year to be locked down for criminal behavior under the US Constitution, in which indentured servitude is legal. Imagine, the 2.4 milion incarcerated never thought they were going into slavery upon doing "time." The youth were so ignut and arrogant they declared, "Aw, nigguh, I can do this time standing up," yeah, twenty-five to life standing up!

In the game they say how you start out is how you end up. Thus, America is simply ending up as she started, a slave society. Today her desire is for wage slaves who will work with few benefits, and no job guarantees. Ideally, contract workers are desired who can be retired at the drop of a hat. They have no job security or social security. They have nothing. They are slaves or persons caught up in the American slave system. But they are hopeless and hapless persons, unable to envision and future for themselves in spite of seeing before them nothingness and dread.

America has no desire to entertain the notion of a just or fair market economy, for this would wreak the very notion of the free market ideal of blood sucking the poor across the planet, of seizing their natural resources at the point of a gun, for this nation's history is repleat with land grabbing and people grabbing, with no regard for the humanity of the people or the divinity of the land and resources.

What does America care about Gross National Happiness, no, her concern is soley with profits, quarterly profit, no matter that the profit motive is killing the American people and the global villagers who are forced to encounter the American slave system of free market economics. Free to do what? Free to charge for any and everything. Free markets to kill, to steal, to rob and destroy the people, the land, the air, the water. What freedom is this except the freedom of madness, the freedom of the greedy, the blood suckers of the poor.

America is going broke because her health system is up to the highest bidder, i.e., insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry that is in league with the petrochemical industry from which oil feeds the wheels of America's addiction to White Supremacy or conspicuous consumption, the raw materialism that allows women and men to have closets full of shoes and clothes not needed or wanted, but purchased in their sick addiction to the world of make believe or naked materialism.

Without things, Americans have no reason for being, for it is the grand narrative, the supreme conversation, what do you have and where are you at? Janet Jackson asked, "What have you done for me lately?" The real question is what have you done for yourself and then what have you done for somebody else, especially since we were taught the Christian dictum, "It is better to give than receive."

The profit is driving America to hell. We need only stand aside and watch her fall into the bottomless pit. No matter whether the issue is health care, education, incarceration, politics or economics, the show is over. This revolution will be televised, with all praise due to Gil Scott.

You watched Egypt fall before your eyes, Tunisia, Yemen is but a minute away, and Syria, soon to come. And then the Grand Master Flash of them all, Saudi Arabia shall fall into the dustbin of history, along with her Sunni sycophants around the world.

Where will America be without the House of Saud? America will be standing with her dick in her hand and her heart racing! But she will not be able to save the House of Saud, for it must fall into the dustbin of history and reactionary theology and cave minded pseudo morality that has no place in the modernity of the new millennium.

The concept of kings, presidents for life, gunboat democracy, Christian imperialism, Western globalism or neo-colonialism, must join relics of the past era. Let the people stand and shout to high heaven that the king is dead, the president for life is no more, the prime minister and his children have been run out of town. Yes, let the people shout to high heaven that the show is over. The long history of eternal servitude has ended.

Now it is indeed about Gross National Happiness. What shall we do to make everyone happy?
How shall we provide for communal happiness, not individual but communal. And so it is ultimately not about a profit motive but the human motive, the people motive, the ancestor motive, the Divine motive. And we know God hears those who praise Him. Our Lord, to Thee is due all praise!
--Marvin X
6/1/11

Syrian President Issues Amnesty, Why Not Obama?

Amnesty has been granted to all those politically criminalised before May 31 [Reuters]

Syrian president Bashar al Assad has issued a general amnesty aimed at calming 10 weeks of protests against his rule and a deadly military crackdown that has rocked the nation.

Syrian state-run media made the announcement on Tuesday, saying that "President Assad has by decree issued an amnesty on all [political] crimes committed before May 31, 2011."

The amnesty is to include all members of political movements, including the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and all political prisoners, the report said.

Membership in the brotherhood, which led an armed rebellion against Assad's father in 1982, had been punishable by death in Syria.

The amnesty decree is believed to be a part of the overtures by the Syrian government to its opposition, largely seen as symbolic.



But it is also seen as an appeal to protesters, as one of their main demands has been the release of political prisoners, along with others such as curbing the power of Syrian security forces.

"It is one of the most important demands because people are spending many years in prison because of their demands for the human rights of our people," Anwar Al Bunni, a lawyer and human rights activist in Syria who spent five years in jail before being released last week, told Al Jazeera.

Bunni said that while amnesty for political prisoners is an important step, Syria needs to undergo many more changes.

"We need to form parties, we need to work politically, we need to meet, we need to have our independent media... we need to open a new page in Syria - a democratic Syria, a free Syria."

Amnesty 'insufficient'

The amnesty announcement was also shrugged off by Syrian opposition activists gathered in Turkey to discuss democratic change and voice support for the revolt.

"This measure is insufficient: we demanded this amnesty several years ago, but it's late in coming," activist Abdel Razak Eid told the AFP news agency.

"We are united under the slogan: the people want the fall of the regime and all those who have committed crimes brought to account. Blood will not have been spilled in vain," he said.

Syria has blamed the violence in the country on armed groups, Islamists and foreign agitators, saying more than 120 police and soldiers have been killed in the unrest.

The European Union last week slapped an assets freeze and travel ban on Assad himself, the latest in a string of sanctions against his regime.

Stepping up pressure on Assad to halt weeks of relentless violence, the EU earlier this month imposed an arms embargo and targeted the president's innermost circle, including his brother and four cousins.

Activists say that at least 10,000 people have been arrested since the start of the popular uprising almost two months ago.

Accurate information from Syria is difficult to confirm, as journalists have largely been denied access, but human rights groups say that more than 1,000 protesters have been killed since the uprising started.

Syrian president issues amnesty - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Obama Must Give General Amnesty to all Prisoners


There has been a long call to free all prisoners unjustly held in American prisons and jails. Ninety per cent were mind altered at the time of their arrest, at least 50% were likely dual diagnosed, i.e., suffer drug abuse and mental illness. The majority are in for petty crimes and if they'd had proper legal representation would serve little or no time at all.

Not only are their crimes petty but should be seen as economic crimes due to poverty and lack of opportunity in a system that is advancing to what must be called neo-feudalism or wage slavery with little permanent employment, no health insurance, no unionism, thus they work at the whim of bosses who earn mega salaries and generous bonuses.

Once incarcerated, they suffer sexual and physical abuse, otherwise known as torture of the worse kind, and this includes inmates of mental wards, juvenile homes, jails and prisons. Those prisoners of conscious are often the most isolated for fear they will infect the population with radical ideology. The death row inmates are usually black and poor again, again, would not be on death row with proper legal representation.

The economic and social cost is astronomical, between fifty and sixty thousand dollars per inmate per year, more than it would cost to send them to Harvard, Yale and Stanford. But incarceration is big business in the era of de-industrialisation or the withering world of work, especially jobs with a living wage. Yet these neo-slaves, i.e., under the US Constitution involuntary servitude is legal, are a valuable commodity in the economic order. Prisons and jails are big business, in many communities the only business. They are now privatized and part of the military/corporate/university complex of institutions that perpetuate the capitalist system of free market exploitation. The incarcerated are of such value that the most powerful union in the state of California is the Correctional Officers Union that obviously has a vital stake in keeping the prison population high so they can maintain their lifestyle of conspicuous consumption. The Union will fight to the death to prevent a general amnesty.

In cahoots with the correctional officers are police departments who must arrest a quota of persons to maintain their jobs and justify their budgets. In some cities the police departments consume the major portion of city funds, to the neglect of schools, libraries and employment projects that would decrease arrests, court costs and incarceration. Many times the police are guilty of planting false evidence, false arrests, engaging in prostitution, drug dealing and money laundering. This behavior by law enforcement is a common feature below the border in Mexico, but is rapidly becoming a feature across the border in the US.

In some cases the police are in conspiracy with developers to destabilize neighborhoods that soon fall to gentrification. All the above applies to Oakland, California. It is a community under siege by police and gangs connected with the police. We suspect half the black on black homicide is police conspired.

A general amnesty must become a top priority of communities, especially with so many men falling victim to the slave catching police. This leads to family disintegration by increasing single family households. It is causing personality deformations in boys and girls who suffer prolong identity crisis since they lack positive male models. A young man attending a drug recovery meeting said, "Man, you might think some of my friends are gay, but they ain't gay, they just never heard a man's voice!"

We must reclaim are people from the dungeons , hellholes and Gulags in America. We cannot continue allowing them to be commodities in the capitalist system, similar to pork, corn, wheat and oil, to be traded on the stock exchange as neo-slaves.

If the last act of Saddam Hussein was a general amnesty, surely President Obama can do the same. It may get him some much needed brownie points for his 2012 election bid. But he must do so because it is the right thing to do. To not do so is economically and socially unsustainable.
--Marvin X
1/4/11

Mariah Carey - We Belong Together

Another possible song for Mythology of Love.