Russia’s attempt to sway the 2016 election continues to consume American politics as the Obama administration struck back with a series of punishments targeting Russia’s spy agencies and diplomats. The White House on Thursday moved to expel 35 suspected Russian intelligence operatives from the U.S. and impose sanctions on the Kremlin’s two leading intelligence services in response for what the U.S. says were a series of cyberattacks conducted by Russia during the presidential campaign. For the time being, Russian President Vladamir Putin has indicated that he won’t immediately retaliate, though that could change.
The simmering tit for tat has kept the issue of election meddling burning bright in the national spotlight, fueled even further by the belief among U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia wanted to help Donald Trump capture the presidency. Yet neither country is a stranger when it comes to directly trying to sway the election of other nations. In fact, the U.S. has a long and stunning history of attempting to influence foreign presidential elections, recent research by political scientist Dov Levin shows.
Levin, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie-Mellon University, found that the U.S. attempted to influence the elections of foreign countries as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000. Often covert in their execution, these efforts included everything from CIA operatives running successful presidential campaigns in the Philippines during the 1950s to leaking damaging information on Marxist Sandanistas in order to sway Nicaraguan voters in 1990. All told, the U.S. allegedly targeted the elections of 45 nations across the globe during this period, Levin’s research shows. In the case of some countries, such as Italy and Japan, the U.S. attempted to intervene in four or more separate elections.
Levin’s figures do not include military coups or regime change attempts following the election of a candidate the U.S. opposed, such as when the CIA helped overthrow Mohammad Mosaddeq, Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, in 1953. He defines an electoral intervention as “a costly act which is designed to determine the election results [in favor of] one of the two sides.” According to Levin’s research, that includes: peddling misinformation or propaganda; creating campaign material for preferred candidates or parties; providing or withdrawing foreign aid, and; making public announcements that threaten or favor certain candidates. Often, it also includes the U.S. covertly delivering large sums of cash, as was the case in elections in Japan, Lebanon, Italy, and other countries.
To build his database, Levin says he relied on declassified U.S. intelligence as well as a number of Congressional reports on CIA activity. He also combed through what he considered reliable histories of the CIA and covert American activity, as well as academic research on U.S. intelligence, diplomatic histories of the Cold War, and memoirs of former CIA officials. Much of America’s meddling in foreign elections has been well-documented — Chile in the 1960s, Haiti in the 1990s. But Malta in 1971? According to Levin’s study, the U.S. attempted to “goose” the tiny Mediterranean island’s economy in the months leading up to its election that year.
Much of the America’s electoral meddling occurred throughout the Cold War as a response to containing Soviet influence through the spread of supposed leftist proxies, the findings suggest. And to be clear, the U.S. wasn’t the only one trying to sway foreign elections. By Levin’s count, Russia attempted to interfere in other countries’ elections 36 times between the end of World War II and the end of the 20th century, bringing the total number of electoral interventions by the two countries to 117 during that period.
Yet even after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the U.S. continued its interventions abroad, including elections in Israel, former Czechoslovakia, and even Russia in 1996, Levin found. Since 2000, the U.S. has attempted to sway elections in Ukraine, Kenya, Lebanon, and Afghanistan, among others.
US Military and Clandestine Operations in Foreign Countries - 1798-Present
Global Policy Forum December 2005
Note: This list does not pretend to be definitive or absolutely complete. Nor does it seek to explain or interpret the interventions. Information and interpretation on selected interventions will be later included as links. Note that US operations in World Wars I and II have been excluded.
1798-1800
France
Undeclared naval war against France, marines land in Puerto Plata.
1801-1805
Tripoli
War with Tripoli (Libya), called "First Barbary War".
1806
Spanish Mexico
Military force enters Spanish territory in headwaters of the Rio Grande.
1806-1810
Spanish and French in Caribbean
US naval vessels attack French and Spanish shipping in the Caribbean.
1810
Spanish West Florida
Troops invade and seize Western Florida, a Spanish possession.
1812
Spanish East Florida
Troops seize Amelia Island and adjacent territories.
1812
Britain
War of 1812, includes naval and land operations.
1813
Marquesas Island
Forces seize Nukahiva and establish first US naval base in the Pacific.
1814
Spanish (East Florida)
Troops seize Pensacola in Spanish East Florida.
1814-1825
French, British and Spanish in Caribbean
US naval squadron engages French, British and Spanish shipping in the Caribbean.
1815
Algiers and Tripoli
US naval fleet under Captain Stephen Decatur wages "Second Barbary War" in North Africa.
1816-1819
Spanish East Florida
Troops attack and seize Nicholls' Fort, Amelia Island and other strategic locations. Spain eventually cedes East Florida to the US.
Marines intervene. A 20-year occupation of the country follows.
1913
Mexico
Marines land at Ciaris Estero.
1914
Dominican Republic
Naval forces engage in battles in the city of Santo Domingo.
1914
Mexico
US forces seize and occupy Mexico's major port city of Veracrus from April through November.
1915-1916
Mexico
An expeditionary force of the US Army under Gen. John J. Pershing crosses the Texas border and penetrates several hundred miles into Mexican territory. Eventually reinforced to over 11,000 officers and men.
The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless.
This is the 15th
in a series of interviews on race that I am conducting for The Stone.
This week’s discussion is with Cornel West, one of the most prominent
and provocative intellectuals in public life. He is a professor of
philosophy and Christian practice at Union Theological Seminary and
professor emeritus at Princeton University. He is the author and editor
of more than 30 books, including “Black Prophetic Fire” and “The Radical
King.” — George Yancy
George Yancy: Recently,
on Aug. 10, you were arrested along with others outside the courthouse
in St. Louis because of the collective resistance against continued
racial injustice and police brutality. What was the political atmosphere
like there?
Fire really means a certain kind of burning in the soul that one can no longer tolerate when one is pushed against a wall.
Cornel West: The black prophetic fire among the younger generation in Ferguson was intense and wonderful. Ferguson is ground zero
for the struggle against police brutality and police murder. I just
wanted to be a small part of that collective fight back that puts one’s
body on the line. It was beautiful because part of the crowd was
chanting, “This is what democracy looks like,” which echoes W.E.B.
DuBois and the older generation’s critique of capitalist civilization
and imperialist power. And you also had people chanting, “We gon’ be
alright,” which is from rap artist Kendrick Lamar, who is concerned with
the black body, decrepit schools, indecent housing. This chant is in
many ways emerging as a kind of anthem of the movement for the younger
generation. So, we had both the old school and the new school and I try
to be a kind of link between these two schools. There was a polyphonic,
antiphonal, call and response, all the way down and all the way live.
Photo
Cornel West, center, and other protesters sitting on the steps of the federal courthouse in St. Louis, Mo., on Aug. 10, 2015.Credit Jeff Roberson/Associated Press
G.Y.: One of your newest books is entitled “Black Prophetic Fire.” Define what you mean by “black prophetic fire.”
C.W.:
Black prophetic fire is the hypersensitivity to the suffering of others
that generates a righteous indignation that results in the willingness
to live and die for freedom.
I think in many ways
we have to begin with the younger generation, the generation of
Ferguson, Baltimore, Staten Island and Oakland. There is not just a
rekindling, but a re-invigoration taking place among the younger
generation that enacts and enables prophetic fire. We’ve been in an ice
age. If you go from the 1960s and 1970s — that’s my generation. But
there was also an ice age called the neoliberal epoch, an ice age where
it was no longer a beautiful thing to be on fire. It was a beautiful
thing to have money. It was a beautiful thing to have status. It was a
beautiful thing to have public reputation without a whole lot of
commitment to social justice, whereas the younger generation is now
catching the fire of the generation of the 1960s and 1970s.
G.Y.: When
I think of black prophetic fire, I think of David Walker, Frederick
Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Audre Lorde, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, Martin
L. King, James Baldwin and so many more. In recent weeks, some have
favorably compared the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates to Baldwin. I know that
you publicly criticized this comparison. What was the nature of your
critique?
C.W.: In
a phone conversation I had with Brother Coates not long ago, I told him
that the black prophetic tradition is the collective fightback of
sustained compassion in the face of sustained catastrophe. It has the
highest standards of excellence, and we all fall short. So a passionate
defense of Baldwin — or John Coltrane or Toni Morrison — is crucial in
this age of Ferguson.
G.Y.: In
what ways do you think the concept of black prophetic fire speaks to —
or ought to speak to — events like the tragic murder of nine people at
the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C.?
I’m an old
Coltrane disciple just like I’m a Christian. You can be full of fire,
but that fire has to be lit by a deep love of the people.
C.W.: Charleston
is part and parcel of the ugly manifestation of the vicious legacy of
white supremacy, and the younger generation — who have been wrestling
with arbitrary police power, arbitrary corporate power, gentrification,
the land-grabbing, the power-grabbing in and of the black community, and
arbitrary cultural power in terms of white supremacist stereotypes
promoted on television, radio and so forth — has become what I call the
“marvelous new militancy,” and they embody this prophetic fire. The
beautiful thing is that this “marvelous new militancy” is true for
vanilla brothers and sisters, it’s true for all colors in the younger
generation, though it is disproportionately black, disproportionately
women and, significantly, disproportionately black, queer women.
G.Y.: Why the metaphor of “fire”?
C.W.: That’s
just my tradition, brother. Fire really means a certain kind of burning
in the soul that one can no longer tolerate when one is pushed against a
wall. So, you straighten your back up, you take your stand, you speak
your truth, you bear your witness and, most important, you are willing
to live and die. Fire is very much about fruits as opposed to foliage.
The ice age was all about foliage: “Look at me, look at me.” It was the
peacock syndrome. Fire is about fruits, which is biblical, but also
Marxist. It’s about praxis and what kind of life you live, what kind of
costs you’re willing to bear, what kind of price you’re willing to pay,
what kind of death you’re willing to embrace.
That was a great
insight that Marcus Garvey had. Remember, Garvey often began his rallies
with a black man or woman carrying a sign that read, “The Negro is not afraid.”
Once you break the back of fear, you’re on fire. You need that fire.
Even if that Negro carrying that sign is still shaking, the way that the
lyrical genius Kanye West was shaking when he talked about George W.
Bush not caring about black people, you’re still trying to overcome that
fear, work through that fear.
The problem is that
during the neoliberal epoch and during the ice age you’ve got the
process of “niggerization,” which is designed to keep black people
afraid. Keep them scared. Keep them intimidated. Keep them bowing and
scraping. And Malcolm X understood this better than anybody, other than
Ida B. Wells — they represented two of the highest moments of black
prophetic fire in the 20th century. Ida, with a bounty on her head, was
still full of fire. And Malcolm, we don’t even have a language for his
fire.
G.Y.: Does
this process of “niggerization” in American culture partly involve
white supremacist myths being internalized by black people?
C.W.: Yes.
When you teach black people that they are less beautiful, less moral,
less intelligent, and as a result you defer to the white supremacist
status quo, you rationalize your accommodation to the status quo, you
lose your fire, you become much more tied to producing foliage, what appears
to be the case. And, of course, in late capitalist culture, the culture
of superficial spectacle, driven by capital, driven by money, driven by
the market, it’s all about image and interest, anyway. In other words,
principle drops out. Any conception of being a person of integrity is
laughed at because what is central is image, what is central is
interest. And, of course, interest is tied to money, and image is tied
to the peacock projection, of what you appear to be.
When you teach black people they are less beautiful, less
moral, less intelligent, you defer to the white supremacist status quo.
G.Y.: Can
we assume then that you then would emphasize a form of education that
would critique a certain kind of hyperrealism that is obsessed with
images and nonmarket values?
C.W.: That’s
right; absolutely. It’s the kind of thing that my dear brother Henry
Giroux talks about with such insight. He’s written many books providing
such a powerful critique of neoliberal market models of education.
Stanley Aronowitz, of course, goes right along with Giroux’s critique in
that regard. The notion has to do precisely with that critical
consciousness that the great Paulo Freire talks about, or the great
Myles Horton talked about, or the great bell hooks talks about in her
works. How do you generate that kind of courageous critical
consciousness that cuts against the grain and that discloses the
operations of market interests and images, capitalist forms of wealth
inequality, massive surveillance, imperial policies, drones dropping
bombs on innocent people, ecological catastrophe and escalating nuclear
catastrophe?
All of these various
issues are very much tied into a kind of market model of education that
reinforces the capitalist civilization, one that is more and more
obsessed with just interest and image.
G.Y.: What
do you see as the foremost challenge in creating a common cause between
past generation and the current generation now “catching fire,” as you
put it?
C.W.: For
me, it is the dialectical interplay between the old school and
prophetic thought and action. I’m an old Coltrane disciple just like I’m
a Christian. You can be full of fire, but that fire has to be lit by a
deep love of the people. And if that love is not in it, then the fire
actually becomes just a sounding brass and tinkling cymbal that doesn’t
get at the real moral substance and spiritual content that keeps anybody
going, but especially people who have been hated for so long and in so
many ways, as black people have.
For me, the love ethic
is at the very center of it. It can be the love ethic of James Baldwin,
Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Marvin Gaye, John Coltrane or Curtis
Mayfield, but it has to have that central focus on loving the people.
And when you love people, you hate the fact that they’re being treated
unfairly. You tell the truth. You sacrifice your popularity for
integrity. There is a willingness to give your life back to the people
given that, in the end, they basically gave it to you, because we are
who we are because somebody loved us anyway.
G.Y.: This
idea relates to the collection of Dr. King’s writings you edited,
called “The Radical King.” Why did you undertake the job of curating and
editing the book?
C.W.: Because
Martin had been so sanitized and sterilized. He has been so Santa
Claus-ified, turned into an old man with a smile, toys in his bag to
give out, and leaving everybody feeling so good. It was like we were
living in Disneyland rather than in the nightmare that the present-day
America is for so many poor working people, especially poor black
working people. So, we needed a kind of crystallization.
But there has been a
variety of different voices talking about the radical King. You know my
closest friend in the world, James Melvin Washington, was one of the
very few people that the King family allowed to bring the collection of
sermons and writings together. It’s one of the greatest honors for me to
be one of the first people that the King family allowed to bring those
kinds of writings together across the board, laying out a framework.
You’ve got James Melvin Washington’s “A Testament of Hope.” You’ve got
other wonderful scholars like James Cone, Lewis Baldwin and others who
have done magnificent work in their own way. But, you know, as I pass
off the stage of space and time, I want to be able to leave these love
letters to the younger generation. I want to tell them that they’re part
of a great tradition, a grand tradition of struggle, critical,
intellectual struggle, of moral and political struggle, and a spiritual
struggle in music and the arts, and so on.
Contrary to when
people talk about King every January, there is in “The Radical King” in
fact a particular understanding of this moral titan, spiritual giant and
great crusader for justice. So you get a sense of who he really
was beyond all of the sanitizing and sterilizing that are trotted out
every year in celebration of him. I consider it the most important book
I’ve ever done.
G.Y.: King
is well known for quoting the American reformer and abolitionist
Theodore Parker’s words, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it
bends toward justice.” What’s your assessment of King’s claim now, in
2015, particularly in the light of the kind of existential plight and
angst that black people and poor people are experiencing? Is there an
arc of the moral universe?
C.W.: I
think King had a very thick metaphysics when it came to history being
the canvas upon which God was in full control. As you know, I don’t have
such a thick metaphysics. I am closer to Anton Chekhov, Samuel Beckett
and a bluesman. I think that King at the end of his life became more of a
bluesman. He began to think: “Lord, have mercy. That arc might be
bending, but it sure is bending the wrong way.” After all, he’s dealing
with white supremacist backlash, patriarchal backlash and capitalist
backlash against working people and the possibility of ecological
catastrophe. He was already wrestling with the possible non-existence of
life on the earth in terms of the nuclear catastrophe that we were on
the brink of. So, he made a leap of faith grounded in a certain
conception of history that was heading toward justice. I don’t accept
that. I just do it because it’s right. I do it because integrity,
honesty and decency are in and of themselves enough reward that I’d
rather go under, trying to do what’s right, even if it has no chance at
all.
G.Y.: I
was thinking about your existentialist sensibilities that would in fact
be critical of the claim that the universe is moral at all. Yet, both
you and King share a blues sensibility that places emphasis on touching
the pain and yet transcending the pain, and also the importance of the
Christian good news.
C.W.: Oh,
absolutely, we are both very similar in terms of never allowing hatred
to have the last word, not allowing despair to have the last word,
telling the truth about structures of domination of various sorts,
keeping track of the variety of forms of oppression so we don’t become
ghettoized and tied to just one single issue. Yet, at the same time,
we’re trying to sustain hope by being a hope. Hope is not simply
something that you have; hope is something that you are. So, when Curtis
Mayfield says “keep on pushing,” that’s not an abstract conception
about optimism in the world. That is an imperative to be a hope for
others in the way Christians in the past used to be a blessing — not the idea of praying for a blessings, but being a blessing.
John Coltrane says be a
force for good. Don’t just talk about forces for good, be a force. So
it’s an ontological state. So, in the end, all we have is who we are. If
you end up being cowardly, then you end up losing the best of your
world, or your society, or your community, or yourself. If you’re
courageous, you protect, try and preserve the best of it. Now, you might
preserve the best, and still not be good enough to triumph over evil.
Hey, that’s the way it is. You did the best you could do. T.S. Eliot
says, “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”
T.S. Eliot was a right-wing brother who was full of wisdom. All you can
do is to try; keep on pushing. That’s all you can do.
G.Y.: When it comes to race in America in 2015, what is to be done?
C.W.: Well,
the first thing, of course, is you’ve got to shatter denial, avoidance
and evasion. That’s part of my criticism of the president. For seven
years, he just hasn’t or refused to hit it head-on. It looks like he’s
now beginning to find his voice. But in finding his voice, it’s either
too late or he’s lost his moral authority. He can’t drop drones on
hundreds of innocent children and then talk about how upset he is when
innocent people are killed. You can’t reshape the world in the image of
corporate interest and image with Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and
then say that you’re in deep solidarity with working people and poor
people. You can’t engage in massive surveillance, keeping track of phone
calls across the board, targeting Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning
and others, and then turn right back around and say you’re against
secrecy, you’re against clandestine policy.
So that,
unfortunately, if he had come right in and asserted his moral authority
over against Fox News, over against right-wing, conservative folk who
were coming at him — even if he lost — he would have let the world know
what his deep moral convictions are. But he came in as a Machiavellian.
He came in with political calculation. That’s why he brought in
Machiavellians like Rahm Emanuel and Larry Summers, and others. So, it
was clear it was going to be political calculation, not moral
conviction.
How can anyone take
your word seriously after seven years about how we need to put a
spotlight on racism when, for seven years, you’ve been engaged in
political calculation about racism? But then you send out your
lieutenants. You send out all your Obama cheerleaders and bootlickers
and they say to his critics that he is president of all of America, not
black America. And we say white supremacy is a matter of truth. Are you
interested in truth? It’s a matter of justice. Are you interested in
justice? It’s a matter of national security. Are you interested in
national security? Well, we talk about black America. We’re not talking
about some ghettoized group that’s just an interest group that you have
to engage in political calculation about. When you talk about black
people, you’re talking about wrestling with lies and injustice coming at
them and their quest for truth and justice. If you’re not interested in
truth and justice, no politician ought to be in office, and not just
the president. So, we’ve actually had a major setback in seven years; a
lost opportunity.
G.Y.: But
is it really possible to speak courageous speech while acting as the
most powerful country in the world? Of course, we also have to admit the
history of racism preceded Obama’s tenure and will exceed it. My point
is that there is a deep tension that exists for someone who desires to
embody prophetic fire and yet be in charge of an empire.
C.W.: I
think that’s true for most politicians, actually. Now when it comes to
the intellectuals who rationalize their deference to the politician, so
they want to pose as prophetic even though they are very much
deferential to the powers that be, they need to be criticized in a very
intense way. That’s why I’m very hard on the Obama cheerleaders, you
see, but when it comes to the politicians themselves, it is
very difficult to be a prophetic politician the way in which Harold
Washington was or the way Paul Wellstone was or the way Shirley Chisholm
was, or the way my dear brother Bernie Sanders actually is. He is a
prophetic politician. He speaks the truth about wealth and equality. He
speaks the truth about Wall Street. He speaks the truth about working
and poor people being afterthoughts in terms of the kind of calculations
of the oligarchs of our day. He shows that it’s possible to be a
politician who speaks the truth.
Once you occupy the
White House, you are head of the empire. Then you have a choice. We’ve
had two grand candidates in the history of the United States. We’ve had
Abraham Lincoln and we’ve had Franklin D. Roosevelt. Both of them are
full of flaws, full of faults, full of many, many blind spots. But they
pushed the American experiment in a progressive way, even given their
faults. And that’s what we thought Obama was going to do. We were
looking for Lincoln, and we got another Clinton, and that is in no way
satisfying.
That’s what I mean by,
we were looking for a Coltrane and we ended up getting a Kenny G. You
can’t help but be profoundly disappointed. But also ready for more
fightback in post-Obama America!
This interview was
conducted by email and edited. Previous interviews in this series (with
Linda Martin Alcoff, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, Charles Mills,
Falguni A. Sheth and others) can be found here.
George Yancy is a
professor of philosophy at Emory University. He has written, edited and
co-edited numerous books, including “Black Bodies, White Gazes,” “Look, a
White!” and “Pursuing Trayvon Martin,” co-edited with Janine Jones.
Correction: August 20, 2015 An
earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the first black
woman in the United States Congress. It is Shirley Chisholm, not
Chisolm. It also included an inaccurate claim by the interviewee, Cornel
West, that only he and one other scholar had been given permission by
the family of Martin Luther King to collect and publish Reverend King's
writings. At least one other scholar, Clayborne Carson of Stanford
University has been given such access.
marvin x and sun ra, 1972, outside marvin's black educational theatre, fillmore district, san francisco.. both were teaching at uc berkeley. sun ra arranged the music for marvin's play take care of business, a five hour concert at the harding theatre on divisadero, without intermission. production included a cast of fifty, including the raymond sawyer dancers and the ellendar barnes dancers, along with the Sun Ra Arkestra and the BET actors.
Islam Needs a Martin Luther By Marvin X The Islamic world needs a Martin Luther, someone to usher in an Age of Reform that will radically alter some of the fundamental values of Islam that are retrograde, archaic, primitive and must be discarded into the dustbin of Muslim history so that Islam can regain its position as a culture of enlightenment rather than darkness. At an Islamic Art Conference I attended this past weekend in Oakland, California, along with Muslims from around the world, there was discussion of how Islam has suppressed artists, calling Muslim art haram (religiously proscribed), shirk (associating partners with God) and other negative terms that essentially condemn Islamic art as evil. When I addressed the audience, I noted that I am the “father of Islamic literature in America” by default because other Muslim writers were told to give up the art of writing, creative anyway, but I ignored the ban and thus my work is all that remains, aside from poet Sam Hamad and a few others who’ve written during the last forty years that may surface with proper research. Not only writers, but painters, musicians, dancers, singers and others were suppressed. Even minister Farrakhan, a musician and singer, was made to give up his art. But we know it is artists who give people visions and prophecy, thus when they are suppressed, the people are likely to walk in darkness as we see at the present moment. In my remarks at the conference, I challenged the Muslim artists to be revolutionary and yes, disobedient—to hell with those who desire to suppress Muslim art, they are the backward ones, they are the evil ones and must be opposed by, yes, any means necessary. So much that goes for Islam is ancient and primitive, really, not worthy of discussion in the modern world among people of intelligence. Elijah Muhammad used to say the wisdom of this world is exhausted, and this includes Islam. It must be revolutionized or thrown into the dustbin of ancient thought. The Islamic revolution must, will and shall be led by Muslim artists with vision for a day when Islamic culture will be the vanguard of world culture, projecting the most positive and scientific aspects of the new millennium. Islamic culture must come from behind the veil, or if anything, put the veil on men and let the women march forth as harbingers of the new world order. Contrary to what men think, women have been found to be the most advanced sector of society, intellectually and spiritually, so we would do well to listen to them for answers to the right path. Clearly, Muslim men are not on sirat al-mustaqim (“the straight path”). Over a billion people of Islamic faith are currently steeped in poverty, ignorance and disease, wallowing in political oppression of the most backward, Stalinist variety. And when the politicians are not oppressing, the mullahs and Imams do the same work, even to the point of following the Christians in the sexual exploitation of boys and girls. Let a Muslim Martin Luther step to the front of the line and represent the way of truth, freedom, justice and equality. Muslim collaborators with imperialism, colonialism, and all manner of retrograde religiosity and political oppression must be condemned. Islamic scholars whose theology is based on primitive laws, edicts, fatwas must be ostracized because their actions only add to the utter confusion and ignorance pervading the Muslim world. Surely, the destruction the Tsunami brought to South Asia is a sign of Allah’s displeasure with the Muslim people, along with Christians, Hindus and others. If we continue down the path of primitive worship of myths and rituals, surely Allah has even greater destruction planned for those without eyes, ears, the deaf, dumb and blind. After Allah has blessed us with light, how can we yet walk in darkness? How can we possess “supreme wisdom” yet have nothing, behave as spiritual slaves to any storefront imam with a rote memory of Al-Qur’an? Let a Martin Luther Muslim arise to destroy idols of ignorance and suppression of creativity. Yes, let everything praise Allah, from the flute to the lute, from the dancer to the poet. Marvin X is a distinguished poet, playwright and essayist of the Black Arts Movement (BAM). He is the founder and director of Recovery Theatre in San Francisco. He also co-founded the Black Arts/West Theatre and Black House, which served briefly as the headquarters for the Black Panther Party and as a center for performance, theatre, poetry and music in the Bay Area. Marvin X continues to work as a lecturer, teacher and producer.
I am contradiction
just to confound you
transcend your myth of me
submit to your rituals
I defy you to be me
not some pure spirit
righteous holy man
for your Crucifixion
I am the meta man
on the other side of time Sun Ra said
catch me on the other side if you can
I am not your leader
lead yourself
no more battles I don't need to fight
don't waste my time
I go to bed early
get up
write after midnight
as the wicked sleep in their sloth
dream of passivity
I am not your leader
lead yourself
you know everything
I can tell you nothing
you don't know
and you will do nothing I say anyway
hard to lead in the right direction, Elijah said
easy to lead in the wrong direction
dwell on my contradictions
not your own
I admit my sins
alcohol drugs beautiful women
yet I am productive on my agenda not yours
have you written 30 books
do you stand on the blood of ancestors
why you coat tailing me
use the mind God gave you
Mama told me
so I do
what yo mama tell you
follow me I will set you free?
follow me and I will confound you
from river to sea
just to be me not your myth
let me think outside the box of your dreams schemes iszms schisms
sects cults dogmatic ideological fantasies
I am not your Jesus, Buddha Muhammad
I am me fat and happy
naked unashamed
drunk high longing for hot wet pussy
come down Mother Theresa
from your Mother Hubbard no giving up pussy ass
we would slap yo square ass in the Crack house
then you would suck every dick in sight
even the dog's
and you would not call it rape
your square ass would be uncovered for the freak you are
and there would be no shame no guilt
you just needed encouragement to unveil your freaky ass
after the nut then what?
revolution in the name of love
return of sanity through struggle like fanon said
let there be movement
a bowel movement at least
movement like a negro moving off zero into one
sun moving to moon
hate moving to love
sloth moving to action
unconscious to consciousness
movement
even I must move when the people whip me into leadership
reluctantly I go into the dreadful night of political engagement
against will desire against joy and happiness to the ugliness
of political combat
in the ring with snakes rats liars thieves of the hearts and souls of men women children.
Must I go there so gently into that night of nothingness and dread
stressing my soul mind heart
tarring me apart from the writer I love
the joy of solitude naked into the night
full of Henny and dope
on the other side of time
I do not care if you are with me there
in the zone where wise men fear to tread
I live there love there let me be
I am not your leader
lead yourself
stand for self and kind
stand sly stone said stand
no more battles I don't need to fight
call me if you need me and I will do what I can
not what you want of me
how you want me to be
when you ain't you
fake as you can be
fake love in my face
fake hair fake eyes lips ass breasts
fake men fake minds
Chris Rock said everything about you is a lie!
man woman lie
only truth about you is you don't know the truth about you
denial is the clothing you wear
afraid to be naked truthful
ashamed of your vital organs
life giving yet your fear shame guilt abounds
consumes your being
you tremble at the nakedness of truth
you deny the undeniable in your fear and trembling
just tell the truth snaggle tooth
Rev. Cecil Williams said, "You want me to do everything, Marvin?"
People, you want me to do everything
as you consume your sloth and niggardliness
let me rest in my drunkenness sex
don't call me to repeat the days of yore
battles already won yet misunderstood
there is no need to fight when the victory is won
devils shall be devils
let the second line begin
let the celebration conquer death
devils shall kill our children
that is their job
murder under the color of law
police ain't the only killers
murder in the schools universities
murder in the food water
organic toxicity
murder in the air
murder in religious myth rituals
murder in wage slavery indirect welfare handout jobs for life
murder in the loving family full of hate jealousy envy
murder murder murder
murder in the mind
murder in the heart
murder in the love bed
let Shaitan kill love
let Shaitan kill two souls joined for life
let Shaitan kill husband kill wife kill children
hail to Shaitan devil within without
listen to the whispering devil who whispers into the hearts of men and women.
who dwells in the Silent Night song for all souls
let the revolutionary stand
transcend solitude for the communal
it is painful for the Shaman to leave his nest on the other side of time
but sometimes he must
rise above imagination into pure action for the better good
stop being the child in toy r us
be about revolution in his father's house
revolution in the upper room
revolution in the dungeon
revolution in the hearts minds souls of men women children.
--Marvin X
5/19/17
