African Liberation Month: History as a Weapon of Struggle

boy map africa African Liberation Month: History as a Weapon of Struggle

We are now in February and for Africans in North America it is a significant mon
th. It is usually observed as Black History Month.
It is taken as an opportunity to acknowledge African people’s struggles, achieveme
nts and commemorate significant moments in the fight against white supremacy, ca
pitalism, sexism and other forms of oppression.
Some of us use this month to reflect and rededicate ourselves to the revolutiona
ry or radical African political tradition.
In the spirit of collective self-criticism, are we at the point where Black Hist
ory Month is due for a name change and focus?
Names are quite important to resistance. It was no accident that the enslaved Af
ricans who were taken across the Sahara Desert ended up with Arab names and thos
e who went by way of the Atlantic Ocean had European names imposed on them.
Denying a people their name is a classic method of colonization and cultural imp
erialism. It is used to weaken collective consciousness, which is critical to bu
ilding a resistance culture.
Black History Month started out as Negro History and Literature Week in 1920 by
the fraternity Omega Psi Phi. Carter G. Woodson was the guiding influence behind
this development and he changed the name to Negro History Week in 1926. That ye
ar is generally acknowledged as the official start of this political observance.
In 1976, Negro History Week was transformed into a month-long celebration and re
born as Black History Month.
Black History Month has since become more about cultural puffery than the politi
cs of emancipation.
Trade unions, school boards, corporations and even government agencies are, for
the most part, comfortable with the current toothless, non-challenging thrust of
this month.
Essentially, they have been allowed to co-opt it and channel its potential for r
adical consciousness-raising and political involvement into celebrating “Black fir
sts” and “Black notables.”
Further, it serves as a platform to sell the virtues of integrating Africans int
o this racist, sexist and capitalist optical illusion that is the Canadian Dream
.
One of the things that we have observed about the forces of exploitation is thei
r wily manipulation and transformation of acts of resistance into harmless and e
mpty symbols. That state of affairs is not possible without the participation of
the oppressed.
Norman Otis Richmond, a Toronto-based journalist, is one of the main advocates i
n Canada for renaming of “Black History Month” as “African Liberation Month.”
I couldn’t agree more with this suggestion.
African Liberation Month would assert the name of the people whose struggle is b
eing affirmed, while clearly communicating to the people that the mission of thi
s celebration is the cultivation of a culture of resistance and liberation.
Let’s make the commitment to consistently use African Liberation Month and not the
other outdated name. It has exceeded it’s “best before” date so we ought to send it t
o the “Museum of Outdated Social Contraptions.”
Of equal importance is doing the work to make African liberation and social tran
sformation central issues on our activism agenda in Canada and beyond.
I am proposing the following endeavours which ought to be among the priorities o
f political militants and the socially engaged during this African Liberation Mo
nth and beyond. In essence, we would be signaling our commitment to the liberati
on ethic within the radical African political tradition.
Firstly, the community needs to devote the necessary resources to the reassertio
n of its radical, organized political voice. Since, the 1990s’ police repression,
criminalization and surveillance of the Black Action Defense Committee (BADC) an
d the political and economic retaliation against Arnold Minors for speaking fran
kly about police containment of Africans, the community has gone into a sort of
political dormancy.
We are at our political best when the politically advanced sectors in the commun
ity educate, organize and mobilize for justice. It should be noted that it was t
he combativeness of the largely African youth participants in the Yonge Street U
prising of May 1992 that forced the government of the Ontario New Democratic Par
ty (ONDP) to enact a slew of anti-racist initiatives.
Secondly, it is absolutely necessary to engage in a structured and systematic po
litical education and skills-building programme for existing activists and prosp
ective ones. It is necessary to draw lessons from our past on the effectiveness
of the process used to prepare and develop our activist base.
Based on my experience, observation and reflection on community activism, we hav
e to take a path that consciously and methodically equip our activists with the
knowledge, skills and attitude to wage a consistent and principled struggle agai
nst sexism, racism, capitalism, homophobia and other forms of oppression. We can
not leave to chance the proper development of ideologically prepared and skilled
activists.
Thirdly, we need to seriously operationalize the message within Kwame Ture’s (form
erly Stokely Carmichael) dictum, “Organization is the weapon of the oppressed.” The
radical and progressive forces in the community need to consolidate their ideas,
efforts and resources in organizations, coalitions and/or alliances. We cannot
continue to get by with fleeting committee-like entities that respond to an issu
e or organize a project and then wither away.
It is through durable organizations that we will be able to educate, organize an
d mobilize Africans in working-class communities and students in high schools, c
olleges and universities, work in coalitions and alliances with allies and addre
ss the issues prioritized by the oppressed and progressive sectors within the co
mmunity.
Fourthly, we must educate and organize Africans to self-fund the resistance or l
iberation work so as to counter the corrosive impact of the Non-Profit Industria
l Complex. The Non-Profit Industrial Complex is a kind of counterinsurgency-like
pacification programme that has co-opted the community’s sense of agency; it’s can-
do spirit. Community workers are not likely to risk their jobs by facilitating t
he radicalizing of consciousness and action of the people.
It is not political activism that is being used to challenge economic, social an
d educational exploitation. Instead, we see the tranquilizer of foundation and g
overnment funding patching up the wounds of social oppression and putting the pe
ople to sleep, politically. Social workers and social service workers have repla
ced political activists as the “organizers” within the community. It is not an encou
raging development.
We do not need to remind you that the person who pays the piper is the one who c
alls the tune. Many of us do not think twice about giving money to our religious
organizations. It is high time that you pony-up a portion of your income and pu
t it into the coffers of progressive African human rights and activist organizat
ions. They are the ones fighting for your material interests and not organizatio
ns that are focused on spiritual, otherworldly matters.
Fifthly, we need to explore the development of a labour self-management strategy
to provide employment and promote economic democracy. It is critical for the le
ft within the African community to counter the right-wing forces that see our li
beration being adorned in the clothing of Black capitalism or mimicking the ethn
ic capitalist enclaves that are spread across Toronto.
We must stand opposed to white or African capital exploiting the labour of the w
orking-class. Therefore, the anti-capitalist left ought to explore the developme
nt of a programme of labour controlled workplaces and enabling organizations.
Sixthly, priority must be given to creating independent labour organizations to
organize and agitate around the workplaces issues that affect the unionized and
non-unionized members of the African working-class. The racialized constituency
groups or affirmative action elected positions that are officially part of the C
anadian labour movement are too compromised and powerless to be of relevance to
the racialized working-class, at this moment.
They can only become useful when we start to carry out critical educational and
organizing work among unionized rank-and-file union members. The pressure and in
itiative must come from the base. The purpose of this work among racialized work
ers would be to radicalize consciousness and develop or expand the skills needed
to advance their needs in union structures as well as in unionized and non-unio
nized workplaces. The Ontario Coalition of Black Trade Unionists of the 1980s an
d early 1990s could provide instructive lessons for us.
Lastly, the African community must develop the organizational structures to adva
nce international solidarity work with sisters and brothers in other parts of th
e world. Imperialism, the patriarchy and racism are international in their respe
ctive characters. We need to provide moral and material support to the struggle
of Africans and other exploited peoples across the globe.
Too often international solidarity activists and organizations do not give suffi
cient attention and resources to campaigns dealing with the suffering of African
peoples. If we look at the massive rape of women in the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, an estimated 250,000 women raped, and the relative indifference of in
ternational solidarity forces, it should be clear that Africans must step up and
take the lead on this matter.
We do not need to mention the Darfur conflict in Sudan where reactionary forces
in North America and elsewhere are exploiting this matter to score geo-political
points in the Middle East. As anti-imperialists, we must support the struggle o
f Africans in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and
elsewhere in a spirit of Pan-African international solidarity. Martin Luther Kin
g’s declaration, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” should guide o
ur solidarity work with all of oppressed humanity.
The radical political tradition of the Angela Davis, Walter Rodneys, Dionne Bran
ds, George Jacksons, Assata Shakurs, C.L.R. James, Claudia Jones, Amilcar Cabral
s, Paul Bogles, Ella Bakers, Mumia Abu Jamals, Malcolm Xs, Sherona Halls, Hubert
Harrisons, Audre Lordes, among many others, may serve as a guide in our fight f
or the just, good and free society. We have no option but to use history and cul
ture as weapons of struggle.
Ajamu Nangwaya is a trade union and community activist and a doctoral candidate
at the University of Toronto, Canada.