|
Statement Released by
TransAfrica
Salih
Booker (202) 546-7961 at Africa Action
Bill Fletcher, Jr. (202) 223-1960 at TransAfrica Forum
African-American Leaders Send Letter to
Mugabe
Condemning Political Repression in Zimbabwe
Black trade union officials, Africa
advocacy groups and Church organizations call for African
diplomatic intervention and an unconditional dialogue among
Zimbabweans to create a transition to democratic rights for all.
Tuesday, June 3, 2003 (Washington, DC) -
Progressive leaders among leading African American
organizations, trade unions, church and advocacy groups today
released an open letter to Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe,
to oppose the political repression underway in that country.
Highlighting long historical ties to the
independence movements of Zimbabwe, the signators described the
current crackdown on political opposition as," in complete
contradiction of the values and principles that were both the
foundation of your liberation struggle and of our solidarity
with that struggle."
The letter to Mugabe follows a process over
the past several months where progressive African Americans have
held a series of meetings with representatives of the Zimabwean
government and of Zimbabwean civil society both here in the U.S.
and in Zimbabwe. The group concluded that it is time that
African American progressives make a public statement on the
deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe that so negatively affects
the people of that proud country with whom the signatories have
stood in solidarity for many decades.
Africa Action executive director, Salih
Booker, said today that "We have a responsibility to our
brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe to state clearly where we
stand. And we stand for human rights and against the repression
of the Mugabe regime directed against Zimbabwe's African
majority."
TransAfrica Forum President Bill Fletcher
urged immediate action by the African Union. "The situation
in Zimbabwe is crumbling quickly. The African Union needs to
intervene as a credible authority before other external forces
exploit what is a crisis, not only for Zimbabwe, but the
continent."
* * *
* *
Open Letter to Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe
3 June, 2003
Dear President Mugabe,
We are writing today to implore you to seek a
peaceful and just solution to your country's escalating national
crisis. Those signed below are Americans of Africa descent -
many of them representing major organizations of civil society
in the United States - who have worked for decades to support
the liberation movements of Africa and the governments that
followed independence which promoted and protected the interests
of all of their nation's people. We form part of an honorable
tradition of progressive solidarity with the struggles for
decolonization, and against apartheid and imperialism in Africa.
We have strong historical ties to the
liberation movements in Zimbabwe, which included material and
political support, as well as opposition to U.S. government
policies that supported white minority rule. In independent
Zimbabwe we have sought to maintain progressive ties with the
political party and government that arose from the freedom
struggle. At the same time our progressive ties have grown with
institutions of civil society, especially the labor movement,
women's organizations, faith communities, human rights
organizations, students, the independent media and progressive
intellectuals. In Zimbabwe today, all of our relations and our
deep empathy and understanding of events there require that we
stand in solidarity with those feeling the pain and suffering
caused by the abuse of their rights, violence and intolerance,
economic deprivation and hunger, and landlessness and
discrimination.
We do not need to recount here the details of
the increasing intolerant, repressive and violent policies of
your government over the past 3 years, nor the devastating
consequences of those policies. The use of repressive
legislation does not, in our respectful view, render such
actions justifiable or moral, because of their presumed
"legality". We represent a long tradition of
opposition to unjust laws. We have previously expressed to your
representative in Washington, DC, our humanitarian concerns
about the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Zimbabwe as well as
that of the famine triggered by the recent southern African
drought and exacerbated by the economic policies and food
distribution practices of your government. We have shared our
concerns that land redistribution in Zimbabwe be used to fight
the poverty of the majority and not to promote the narrow
interests of another minority. But most of all, we have
communicated clearly that we view the political repression
underway in Zimbabwe as intolerable and in complete
contradiction of the values and principles that were both the
foundation of your liberation struggle and of our solidarity
with that struggle.
Today, Mr. President we call upon yourself
and those among the ruling party who truly value democracy, and
wish to protect the future of all of Zimbabwe's citizens to take
extraordinary steps to end your country's political crisis and
place it upon a path toward peace. We ask that you initiate an
unconditional dialogue with the political opposition in Zimbabwe
and representatives of civil society aimed at ending this
impasse. We call upon you to seek the diplomatic intervention of
appropriately concerned African states and institutions,
particularly South Africa and Nigeria, and SADC and the African
Union, to assist in the mediation of Zimbabwe's civil conflict.
Mr. President, the non-violent civil
disobedience that is growing in your country - such as that
which took place on Mother's day in Bulawayo - is increasingly
met with police brutality and excessive force. Such trends in
the abuse of human rights are not only unacceptable, they are
threats to your country's stability and they are undermining the
economic and political development your people desire and
deserve. We believe that a peaceful solution is possible for
Zimbabwe if you find a way to work with others in and outside of
your government to create an effective process for a transition
to a more broadly supported government upholding the democratic
rights of all.
Sincerely yours in struggle,
William Lucy, President, Coalition of
Black Trade Unionists
Willie Baker, Executive Vice President, Coalition of
Black Trade Unionists
Salih Booker, Executive Director, Africa Action
Bill Fletcher, Jr., President, TransAfrica Forum
Horace G. Dawson Jr., Director Ralph J. Bunche
International Affairs Center, Howard University
Patricia Ann Ford, Executive Vice President, Service
Employees International Union (SEIU)
Julianne Malveaux, TransAfrica Forum Board Member
Rev. Justus Y. Reeves, Executive Director Missions
Ministry, Progressive National Baptist Convention, The
Coordinating Committee, Black Radical Congress (BRC)
* * *
* *
TransAfrica
leaders (below) -- Danny Glover (left) and Bill Fletcher, Jr. (right)
Why We Spoke Out on
Zimbabwe
By Bill
Fletcher, Jr.
President of TransAfrica
Forum
The decision to issue a statement strongly
condemning the current regime of Zimbabwe's President Robert
Mugabe was far from easy. President Mugabe had been a hero of
mine and I had been a strong supporter of the Zimbabwe African
National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) during the national
liberation war. Nevertheless, as with my other colleagues and
co-signatories, it became clear that silence and inaction on the
deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe was no longer acceptable.
Indeed, it is not clear that failing to comment on developments
there had ever been a proper course of action.
Many of us in the US who see ourselves as
progressive have interpreted developments in Zimbabwe in very
different ways. Honest people can disagree. At the same time, it
is important for us to identify the source of the disagreement,
particularly if we ever hope to overcome such disputes.
In the case of Zimbabwe, the rhetoric of the
Mugabe regime is disconnected from the actual evolution of the
country post-independence. The irony of the current rhetoric of
President Mugabe is that its militancy stands in opposition to
many of the practices that he himself followed in the years
subsequent to the Lancaster House Agreements of December 1979
that brought about Zimbabwe's freedom in 1980. President Mugabe,
the truth be told, supported the structural adjustment policies
insisted upon by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
In fact, it was largely the backward and anti-people economic
policies of his government that resulted in the development of a
major opposition movement in the late 1990s.
President Mugabe has convinced many people of
good will, here in the USA, that his stand on land
redistribution demonstrates his commitment to true Black
majority rule in Zimbabwe. What is strikingly odd about this is
that land redistribution could have been conducted over the last
10 years (for the first ten, due to the terms of the Lancaster
House Agreements, there was little that could be done). In fact,
it needed to happen. The demand for land by agricultural workers
and farmers was a real initiative. While it is absolutely the
case that the US and Britain were to assist in subsidizing the
land redistribution (and in fact reneged on this promise) the
issue of land redistribution was largely ignored by President
Mugabe's government until a mass opposition movement arose that
challenged his, until then, undisputed leadership role. It was
only at that juncture that President Mugabe championed immediate
land redistribution, but in a manner that benefited not the mass
of agricultural workers and farmers, but instead first and
foremost the party faithful of the ZANU-PF-the ruling party.
Deciding to speak out on Zimbabwe does not
mean that I or the other signatories either support or oppose
the principal opposition movement: the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC). Rather, speaking out represents a concern that the
current political repression conducted by the government is
fueling fires that might ignite into civil war. The MDC,
contrary to President Mugabe's propaganda, is neither a small
clique of opponents nor agents of Western imperialism. They are
a mass-based opposition that has often contradictory politics.
That said, driving the country to the brink of civil war not
only threatens the future of Zimbabwe, but as well threatens to
destabilize Southern Africa as a whole.
A final point. Speaking out on Zimbabwe is
also a “preemptive strike” against the “regime change
rhetoric” – and possible actions-of the Bush administration
and the Blair administration (in Britain). Both the USA and
Britain have opportunistically seized upon the crisis in
Zimbabwe over the last two years in order to focus attention on
the plight of the white farmers. Despite many other human rights
situations that have been far worse, both within Africa as well
as globally, Bush and Blair have called attention to the alleged
plight of the white farmers and their loss of land. We, who have
signed this letter, share nothing in common with the politics or
sentiments of Bush or Blair. We are, in fact, quite worried that
in the triumphalism that has followed the US/British invasion of
Iraq, that Bush and Blair may choose to opt for a military
intervention (covert or overt) in Zimbabwe in order to install a
regime more favorable to their imperial ambitions. Such a step
would have a catastrophic impact region wide.
I believe, in issuing the open letter to
President Mugabe, that Africans must resolve the situation in
Zimbabwe. There is no role for the regime change mania of Bush
and Blair. Yes, it is time for a new, progressive leadership to
emerge in Zimbabwe, a leadership that draws from the best
elements of the ZANU-PF and the MDC. A leadership that charts a
course for Zimbabwe toward self-determined development and
democracy. But that course must be developed by Africans, with
the help of Zimbabwe's neighbors, and absent the megalomania and
interventionism of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and 10 Downing
Street.
[Note:
for excellent background reading I would suggest Patrick Bond
& Masimba Manyanya,
Zimbabwe Plunge: Exhausted
Nationalism, Neo-liberalism and the Search for Social Justice.
Published by Merlin Press, 2002].
* *
* * *
Launching the
Pedagogical History of Africa Project in Harare
yesterday [5 September 2011] , President Mugabe said
. . .
"The history that must be written by our African
scholars and academics here is the history that
focuses on African people in struggle as creators of
their own destiny rather than mere consumers of
stories written about them by passive on-lookers who
oftentimes happen to be non-African outsiders . . .
. Real history belongs to a people in struggle and
not to the interpreters of history. The people
themselves are the makers of history and therefore
the real historians. The interpreters are mere
raconteurs of history and not the actual
history-makers as is often wrongly implied . . .
Only this way can we avoid history written by
colonialists as 'winners'. Our real winners are the
people, whose real history or struggle the so-called
winners would like to distort and suppress . . . You
cannot be a historian of African people if you do
not share their cry or their laughter. No. The
African sensibility, reflected in African culture
and worldview, is the only accurate compass to guide
a historian who is genuine about writing African
history. . . . Slavery and colonisation do not
themselves constitute African history. They disrupt
and falsify the trajectory of African history. They
dehumanise Africans to fit into the scheme of
European capital. The ideology of racism is created
as a parallel process to rationalise the oppression
of Africans. . . . I need not stress that it is
imperative to edify educational systems, which
embody the African and universal values so as to
ensure the rooting of youth in African culture in
the context of a sustainable and participatory
development. This way we continue to foster the
spirit of unity in Africa as embodied in the African
Unity Charter”—AllAfrica
*
* * * *
 |
Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
|
* *
* * *
|
Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in
America
By Melissa V.
Harris-Perry
According to the
author, this society has historically exerted
considerable pressure on black females to fit into one
of a handful of stereotypes, primarily, the Mammy, the
Matriarch or the Jezebel. The selfless
Mammy’s behavior is marked by a slavish devotion to
white folks’ domestic concerns, often at the expense of
those of her own family’s needs. By contrast, the
relatively-hedonistic Jezebel is a sexually-insatiable
temptress. And the Matriarch is generally thought of as
an emasculating figure who denigrates black men, ala the
characters Sapphire and Aunt Esther on the television
shows Amos and Andy and Sanford and Son, respectively.
Professor Perry
points out how the propagation of these harmful myths
have served the mainstream culture well. For instance,
the Mammy suggests that it is almost second nature for
black females to feel a maternal instinct towards
Caucasian babies.
As for the source
of the Jezebel, black women had no control over their
own bodies during slavery given that they were being
auctioned off and bred to maximize profits. Nonetheless,
it was in the interest of plantation owners to propagate
the lie that sisters were sluts inclined to mate
indiscriminately.
|
 |
* *
* * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
* * * * *
If you like this page consider making a donation
* * * * *
Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
* * * * *
The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
* *
* * *
The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
* * * * *
* *
* * *
updated 10 July 2011
|
