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Obama, Political Cynicism, and the Tea Party
By Rudolph Lewis
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If
Obama were to bomb all the Arabs back into
the Stone Age and burn every Koran he found,
he would still be scorned by the Tea Party
and he would still be denounced as a Muslim.—Wilson |
Ideology is
probably a good first step on the road to
African-American political consciousness. But it will
never be sufficient. I learned that early, at least by
the time I was twenty and a member of Baltimore
SNCC. My Black Power friends mocked me for my
fondness for Dr. King. I suppose my Baptist and African
roots found a profound political connection in his
educated rhetoric and Southern soul. Of course, my love
for King did not undermine my love for Malcolm X. They
were of the same coin in their struggle for black
progress and black liberation. And when Martin came out
against the Vietnam War I was fully committed to him and
his campaign for poor people.
I know very little
about Malcolm’s religion. In the end he put religion
aside for he saw religion as a source of conflict for
Afro-Americans who want to pursue the
struggle for black
liberation. My interest emphasized his developing
politics and world view. Of course, Martin was no
religious fundamentalist: he rebelled against the Black
Baptist convention and attempted to overthrow the then
present Negro Baptist leader. But that move was
unsuccessful and thus he found a political alternative
in the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was
in effect non-denominational and non-church. It was
indeed Christ-centered, but not solely Christian: it was
rather a kind of Christian syncretism, religion as
social justice determined by worldly experience.
I once had an
academic friend who stated publicly her religion was
Pan-Africanism. That went too far for my taste. But I
too have been affected by Pan Africanism as a mode of
thought, which can be at least dated back to the 1850s
in the writings of Martin R. Delany. What Negro thought,
even on the lowest level, has not been affected by our
connection to Africa. Pan Africanism has many branches,
both reactionary and revolutionary and all in between. I
was influenced by Pan-Africanist thought sufficiently
enough to spend ten
weeks in the Congo. I discovered soon after my
arrival, like Richard
Wright and
Amiri Baraka before me in their visits to Africa,
that African-American political consciousness cannot be
placed under the umbrella of African consciousness, that
is, under the political thought that exists today in
Africa since
Nkrumah of Ghana and
Nasser of Egypt. African consciousness and
African-American political consciousness may indeed,
however, run on parallel tracks, both having varying
visions of African unity. In both instances there is a
political fuzziness.
I am neither
pro-Arab nor anti-Arab. I was early on warned by one of
my Baltimore mentors, Walter
Lively, to be cautious about Arab and Muslim
romanticism, often thought of in the same vein. He made
clear that Western imperialism and Arabian imperialism
have had a derisive and destructive impact on the
children of Africa. Of course, the culture and
technology of both lands have had much to offer us on
our journey to a larger humanity and civilization.
Subsequently and recently, I have had conversations with
writers
Kola Boof of Egyptian and Nubian birth
and Chinwezu
of Nigeria. Both of them are rabidly and
embarrassingly anti-Arab which make them fearful of any
Arab intervention in African affairs. Their Arab
opposition goes far beyond ideology and border on a
racial hatred of the Arab, at the expense of good,
sound, and reasonable politics.
Their views and
experiences are much more visceral than any event that
has approached my experience. Like many
SNCC veterans, I have sympathized and continue to
feel for the devastating position that the Palestinians
find themselves, especially with the not too long ago savage
Israeli military attack on Gaza. Many have already
forgotten about that. Mr. Obama had little or nothing to
say about that murderous attack on civilians. The misery
of Palestinians were soon wiped out of American
consciousness and forgotten by the political left and
the corporate media. I have had however less distant
contact with Arab belligerency. Back in the mid-1980s
when I was teaching in New Orleans, there was a
murderous attack by Arab merchants (as I recall they
were Palestinians): they shot down a running black in
the street because he stole a bottle of wine. The black
community burned down their store. Even steven, as far
as it went, or almost so.
I have no beef with
Moses, Jesus, or Muhammad, or even with Buddha, or other
religious prophets. They have moral aspects much to be
admired, and some highly questionable reported practices
and views. As a consequence I have read a good deal of
religious literature to satisfy my own intellect and
have made use of religious material in some of my
writings, for and against religious tenets. On the whole
I suspect my views run in a skeptical humanist vein,
with a willingness to listen to and hear the revealed
word.
But back to
politics and the matter of the American attack on an
African country, namely,
Libya.
What is the source of this vicious military attack on
the Libyan peoples and their sovereignty, when only a
few weeks ago the West was cozying up to Libya as a
source of oil and economic investment in Western banks
and other Western institutions? Of course, this
war-making has long and short range implications. Long
range interests center around the ambitions of
Africom,
whose military plans desire to create a safe and viable
source for African natural resources so that the West
can retain its international and racist leadership.
In the short term,
the West found
Libya
an easy mark politically and militarily, all under the
cover of the so-called democratic revolutions in the
Middle East and North Africa. In the assessment of these
geopolitical machinations,
Molefi Kete Asante and Afrocentricity International
(“Africans
Beware the Saviors of Libya”) are on target and
should be given attention to the aptness of their views.
Most African intellectuals, I think, will agree and take
comfort in these African-American views and Asante's
Afrocentric comrades.
But Obama's
calculations and those of the
Tea Party
white male are indeed not one and the same. His
geopolitical goals are much more fuzzy than those of the
American corporate establishment, and those of France’s
Nicolas Sarkozy. Mr. Obama is one of those Negroes
who wants, so to speak, to eat his cake and have it too.
That is, he wants to be loved by the Negro masses while
at the same time serving the interests of the
military-industrial complex and the racist-imperialist
perspective of a critical core of white American
citizens. These loyalties and emotional desires are in
conflict.
While the American
Negro is inclined toward excess in matters of race
pride, he knows at the bottom of a heart conditioned by
harsh experience and brutal reality that America is not
a haven of justice and love for colored peoples and he
is very knowledgeable of what police state tactics are
and how they are used by American security forces
against both black men and women. The American Negro
knows that America has a great love for colored peoples
of the world only in so far as they can be used for
white Western benefit. Mr. Obama reminds me of the
racial politics of once-Maryland governor Spiro Agnew. I
was a Morgan State College student then and the Maryland
Democratic Party had split and chose an out-and-out
racist for its candidate. Mr. Agnew, who was then a
Republican county government leader, told us Morgan
students, "You need me more than I need you."
Well, that is what
Mr. Obama's cynical politics has come to. He has little
or no respect for us, for where we black people
spiritually are. He wants our love but he has no love to
give us, either with respect to our idealistic hopes
abroad or our material needs at home. To satisfy
Republicans, the
Tea Party,
and their political sympathizers, Mr. Obama is unwilling
to make a vigorous fight to retain and promote needed
social and educational programs that will advance social
and economic progress for most of our black communities,
and change the ubiquitous culture of anti-black
repression.
To satisfy oil
interests and the military-industrial complexes of
America, the UK, France, other European countries, and
Saudi Arabia and other Arab states (and win white
friends), Mr. Obama is ready and anxious to make war on
Africa and its peoples, if any of these
military aggressions will get him elected to a second
term.
21 March 2011
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Response to Barack
Obama’s Libyan War
By Rudolph Lewis
I have just
published Obama's
declaration of war on Libya, an act of
aggression under the guise of "saving lives" and
avoiding mass murder of the citizens of Libya. Attached
are selected critical responses from well-known
journalists. From my side of town President Barack
Obama has committed a most grave error in judgment.
Likely he was pressured by Hillary
Clinton, head of the State department, along with
Susan
Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. It is
all quite ironic that the most hawkish members of his
Cabinet are these two professional women, one white and
the other black.
From media reports,
Mrs. Clinton has always been hawkish since she first
entered the Senate and voted for the Iraq War. The other
event that forms her judgment supposedly is the analogy
of the Rwanda crisis and the hesitation of her husband
in his decision as President when he allowed the
genocide to proceed and ending with almost a million
slaughtered. Whether Mrs. Clinton's analogy is
appropriate is beside the point. Obama is the president
and making war on Libya is his call. As Assistant
Secretary of African Affairs,
Ms. Rice consistently represented policies that were
not in the best interests of Africa and its peoples.
That is, she has long represented conservative and right
wing positions, with a passion.
What we have
here in decision-making is an Obama trait we have noted
in his two years as president, namely, a tentative
decision-making in which he splits the difference. In
this case, the U.S. is following the rabid hawkishness
of France and its president
Nicolas Sarkozy, who has already recognized the
Benghazi rebels (before the UN Security Council
vote) as the legitimate representative of Libya and in a
half manner so has Mrs. Clinton. We know little or
nothing about these representatives, their policies, or
their interests. They are similarly spoken as
representatives of "democracy," a catchword for Western
economic interests. In any case Western leaders have no
business as supposed leaders of democracy choosing the
leaders of sovereign countries or undermining legitimate
government by overt or cover means.
My primary
opposition is on three levels: 1) violation of
sovereignty, 2) lack of Congressional approval, and 3)
lack of political consistency. Violation of sovereignty
was the rationale for the first war against Iraq and the
maintenance of a no-fly zone over Iraq. The U.S. has
used the
Arab
League as a cover for its act of war against a
sovereign state. The League is made up of autocrats
(including sheiks and kings) and other anti-democrats.
Its main mission is to sustain sovereignty, which it has
now outrageously violated.
Second, the
executive branch of our government has consistently
violated the Constitution by involving the United States
in foreign wars without the approval of Congress. It has
been a downhill slope since the end of World War II. The
American people are the ultimate victims in these
executive actions. As presidential candidate, Mr. Obama
spoke forcefully against such executive behavior. That
was when Bush was in his 2nd term. We mistook Mr. Obama
for one who was against unnecessary and imperial wars.
How wrong we were.
Third, if one
examines the two
Obama speeches on Libya, we find that they are
filled with lies and half-truths and exaggerations.
Saudi Arabia has never pretended to be a democratic
state. It has declared all demonstrations illegal in the
realm. Further, it has sent military forces into Bahrain
and has already killed citizens protesting for
democratic rights and an end of the nation’s apartheid.
In this declaration
of war, we do not find the Obama we loved for speaking
truth. We find a man who has been corrupted by the power
of his office. It is quite regrettable on a personal as
well as a policy level. We have already seen a
black
lawyer in the Pentagon, Jeh C. Johnson, assert that
Martin Luther King would approve of our war-making in
Afghanistan. I suspect Mr. Obama has been so blinded by
power he too would also assert that Dr. King would look
favorably on his declaration of war against Libya, its
government, and its peoples. Is he really the Joshua,
the righteous man, he promised. How the mighty fall!
Our so-called black
leaders are ever willing to revise and pervert African
American history as a means of sustaining material
privileges and their purported leadership of black hopes
and interests. One thing that we know from the last days
of Dr. King is that imperial wars do not serve the
interests of the American people, especially the working
classes and in particular the black poor. Resources that
could be used for peace and national prosperity are
drained off into the military-industrial complex and the
pockets of a wealthy elite.
In that this
crucial matter has been placed before him, Mr. Obama
wants to assure us in his tentative (half-stepping)
manner that this aggressive war-making against Libya is
not going to hurt us very much. That is if we put aside
the immorality and illegality of his declaration of war.
Ground troops will not be committed, he asserts.
Militarily and economically, France, the UK, and states
of the Arab League will take the lead. That will leave
the United States free to deal with other such issues as
deficit reduction and high unemployment among the
working classes and the attacks on social and
educational programs that serve the better interests of
the American people at large.
But we know that is
a great deceit. Once a war begins there is a desire to
avoid loss of face or a hasty withdrawal, or seeming
fool-heartedness. We have been in Afghanistan for ten
years and another seven years in Iraq and we know not
when the total withdrawal of those troops will occur or
when these wars will stop draining the national treasury
and causing the country to borrow money just to pay for
those wars. It’s a pity that Mr. Obama has betrayed the
black working classes and blackened his legacy as the
first black president.
19 March 2011
posted 21 March 2011
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Africans
Beware the Saviors of Libya /
US Senate discusses sending troops to Libya
Libya, Africa, and the Victorians (Manheru)
Rehabilitating U.S. Military Intervention in the Age
of Obama
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Incognegro: A Memoir of
Exile and Apartheid
By Frank
B. Wilderson III
Wilderson, a professor,
writer and filmmaker from
the Midwest,
presents a gripping account
of his role in the downfall
of South African apartheid
as one of only two black
Americans in the African
National Congress (ANC).
After marrying a South
African law student,
Wilderson reluctantly
returns with her to South
Africa in the early 1990s,
where he teaches
Johannesburg and Soweto
students, and soon joins the
military wing of the ANC.
Wilderson's stinging
portrait of Nelson Mandela
as a petulant elder eager to
accommodate his white
countrymen will jolt readers
who've accepted the
reverential treatment
usually accorded him. After
the assassination of
Mandela's rival, South
African Communist Party
leader Chris Hani, Mandela's
regime deems Wilderson's
public questions a threat to
national security; soon,
having lost his stomach for
the cause, he returns to
America. Wilderson has a
distinct, powerful voice and
a strong story that shuffles
between the indignities of
Johannesburg life and his
early years in Minneapolis,
the precocious child of
academics who barely
tolerate his emerging
political consciousness.
Wilderson's observations
about love within and across
the color line and cultural
divides are as provocative
as his politics; despite
some distracting
digressions, this is a
riveting memoir of
apartheid's last days.—Publishers
Weekly
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Becoming American Under Fire
Irish Americans, African Americans, and the Politics of Citizenship
During the Civil War Era
By Christian G. Samito
In Becoming American under Fire, Christian G. Samito provides a rich account of how African American and Irish American soldiers influenced the modern vision of national citizenship that developed during the Civil War era. By bearing arms for the Union, African Americans and Irish Americans exhibited their loyalty to the United States and their capacity to act as citizens; they strengthened their American identity in the process. . . . For African American soldiers, proving manhood in combat was only one aspect to their quest for acceptance as citizens. As Samito reveals, by participating in courts-martial and protesting against unequal treatment, African Americans gained access to legal and political processes from which they had previously been excluded. The experience of African Americans in the military helped shape a postwar political movement that successfully called for rights and protections regardless of race. For Irish Americans, soldiering in the Civil War was part of a larger affirmation of republican government and it forged a bond between their American citizenship and their Irish nationalism. The wartime experiences of Irish Americans helped bring about recognition of their full citizenship through naturalization and also caused the United States to pressure Britain to abandon its centuries-old policy of refusing to recognize the naturalization of British subjects abroad. / For Love of Liberty |
Wilderson's observations
about love within and across
the color line and cultural
divides are as provocative
as his politics; despite
some distracting
digressions, this is a
riveting memoir of
apartheid's last days.—Publishers
Weekly
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update 7 April 2012
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