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-----Original Message-----
From: bloede@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bloede@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Sunday, July 20, 2003 1:29 PM To: recipient list suppressed Subject: POCKETS of RESISTANCE No. 24 POCKETS of RESISTANCE no.
24
Pockets of Resistance is published online by Dark Night Press and
supports the struggle for liberation of indigenous peoples
In this issue:
Speaking of Struggle Series - July 2003
Looting Other Tribes by Carter Camp
Hiding Genocide: The National Museum Of The American Indian by Carter
Camp
Never Giving In by Ramona Africa
This issue continues a thread of Pockets of Resistance pieces that
give voice to activists and organizers in the field. It is intended to address
the need for writing from the field of struggle that educates to empower
liberation.
Looting Other Tribes by Carter Camp, Ponca Tribe, originally posted on NDN
AIM list
I was asked why I fight against America's foreign wars and speak against them so often. My history, like many indians, is so much different than other Americans that they can not understand where I'm coming from... here's where I'm coming from: In the 1880's the Americans decided my Ponca people belonged in concentration camps (you supply the reasons, it makes no difference), so they sent their army to round up my Grandfather, Grandmother and all the rest of my relations from the land guaranteed to them forever and made them walk to the concentration camp in Quapaw, Oklahoma. We stayed there for three years and one third of my family, my clan and my Tribe died before they made us buy another reservation and told us it was ours to live on forever. Luckily for me my grandparents survived the death march. My Mother was born on the new rez in Oklahoma. She was the child of genocide and I am the grandchild. Soon after we arrived on our new land, the Americans decided we had too much and forced our leaders to accept individual allotment of the land we had purchased in common from the Cherokee (some people think we were given our reservation lands but we bought ours as a Tribe). By holding the land in common, land thieves were held at bay and the Ponca could stave off starvation. Allotment meant individuals could be pinned down by greedy white people and robbed. All across indian territory our leaders fought allotment and my Grandfather resisted also. They were jailed, abused and finally defeated again. Allotment and the white "land runs" happened. Suddenly the Ponca were surrounded by jackals in all their hues, just like the ones who had driven them from our ancestral homelands. The land runs created a white majority. This allowed the creation of the state of Oklahoma in 1906 and all powers of self government were stripped from my people. The Ponca had been reduced from over a thousand relatives to about five hundred or less, and my Grandpa had changed from being a buffalo hunter to a farmer on the poorest dirt America could find. Our family and my people were thrown into the very bottom of the okie melting pot and then the great depression hit what economics we had left and forced our people to sell their allotments, ending even farming. Need I mention the BIA was busily trading on indian misery by stealing the land in collusion with the new, white, Oklahoma powerstructure. My Grandpa still lived then and would not sell land as long as he was alive but finally he died and most of the land quickly went to whites, my Ponca Tribe still lives on the remnants. Ask yourself, what was your Grandfather doing when he was a young man and what did America do to (or for) him? You now know what they were doing to mine and to every other Ponca. The first whiteman came among the Ponca in 1800. By 1880 we were one half dead from his disease, then by 1930 a third more had perished, and along with them our land was taken from under us twice. He stole our children and outlawed our religions, he banned our language, denigrated our history and enslaved our mentality. All this during the lifetime of my Grandfather and Grandmother. In 1908 the Ponca Chiefs were forced to put away the sacred Sundance and our Clan system. In 1917 one hundred percent of eligible Ponca men volunteered to enlist for WW1. In return, in 1924 he gave us the right to vote and told us to forget our past. This is what my immediate family has lived through in America. Each Tribe goes through their "time of horror" when he comes. The Ponca horror was not that long ago and we are not yet whole nor healed nor assured of a future. Some Tribes are going through it today and I hear their cries every bit as loud as I do 9-11. I think maybe only Jewish Americans, (whose parents and grandparents went through their own holocaust of death by government) can understand why it's too soon to ask us to trust the people who did this to us just because they've moved on to loot other tribes. History has a way of coloring one's view of America, my history sees that what he has given to his chosen few in rich, white, America, was taken in red blood and my Grandfather and Grandmother witnessed it. My history has rendered me unsusceptible to the patriotic brainwashing needed to excuse the killing. I am Carter
Camp...Ponca.
Hiding Genocide: The National Museum Of The
American Indian
by Carter Camp, Ponca Nation, December 6, 1999 Seems we rez-based Indians always are slow to react to
events taking place in Washington D.C., by the time we wake up the damage is
done. The new "Redskins" stadium is one place we could have made a stand if we
were serious about the mascot issue. Another cultural rip-off being foisted on
our people is the National Museum of American Indian going up in D.C. I once
warned about it in a letter carried by Indian Country Today in the early
nineties, but a small voice is easily
drowned out when millions of dollars are being spent and the voice of the GreatWhiteFather anoints Indian leaders. For a decade or more the Smithsonian fundraising machine has gone merrily along, draining much needed funds away from the Indian community and diverting Americas attention away from the economic, cultural and legal devastation going on across our homelands. Our leaders are grinning and shuffling into line to endorse another whiteman's dream, and our artists and writers can't seem to wait for a grant, the ultimate pat on the head from the hand of power. Am I the only Indian who doesn't trust the graverobbing Smithsonian or who questions the basic premise of the use of this unique space on the American National Mall? The only good thing I can see coming from this place is it probably will have an Indian-artist-designed front entrance, properly blessed by a medicine man, that we can use to protest the various acts of genocide as they are carried out and we ourselves become artifacts. Just what we Indians need, a museum to celebrate our "disappearance" (albeit with a nod to our survivance) before we're quite dead! All is normal in Indian Country. Once upon a time there were two open spaces for museums on the National Mall. African Americans coveted a space as did Hispanic, Jewish and Native Americans. Many interest groups, from Veterans to the D.A.R., also wanted the rare spaces. Congress in its wisdom awarded one site to a very politically powerful (and deserving) Jewish applicant and another to the very politically powerful Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. 'keeper of the loot.' Then the "fool the Indian" process began and it proved to be very easy. Just put an Indian face on it (out of the vast Smithsonian collection) and it magically becomes an "Indian" project. With a shaman's wave, shape changers and crypt-worms become our friends, close enough to be Indian-endorsed as keepers of our precious past and tellers of our history. Is it merely my imagination that over the generations of conquest and looting, enumerating and studying, digging and classifying, collecting and recording, the Smithsonain might have learned and be USING our own sacred secrets to blind our leaders to the real plan? What else explains the lack of a dissenting voice as our leaders and artists shamble all in a line? Indians stand REDLY in the way of the American dream. For centuries Americans have dreamed we are "vanishing" and have tried hard to make it true. The Smithsonian was created to enclose us in their white past and to chronicle our demise. What medicine has made them our friends? Where has Coyote been lately? Contrast the two new museums and you can see how they are used to support a conqueror's cleansed view of history: For the Jewish museum no thought at all was given to using it to show the world ancient Jewish culture and artifacts. They could have displayed scenes of ancient Jewish life - hunting, tanning hides and pastoral living. Like an Indian museum. It would have been beautiful and easy for people to enjoy. It wasn't done that way for one reason...The Jewish people were in charge and they decided for themselves what aspect of their history to show the world. They decided with one voice to use the rare space as a shield to protect their people against a repeat of the Nazi holocaust. Jewish politicians funded and protected Jewish intellectuals, artists, historians, Rabbis and survivors as they crafted a way to commemorate their dead and to use their past to protect their future. They refused to allow the dreams of others to distort the truth of their horror, and now their museum is a powerful testament to a Jewish dream, not a gentile revision of reality. Our space, and the world's window to our Nations, was turned over to the Smithsonian Institution to enshrine the lie of 'manifest destiny' and the historical inevitability of the American Holocaust. America's museums have always been a prime purveyor of the big lies of American history. Now the largest and worst is given an army of non-Indian historians, anthros, romance writers and a couple of Indian scouts, to define us to the world. THEY decided with one voice NOT to use our rare and precious space as a shield of truth against the American Holocaust, or to prevent the conclusion of its evil purpose against my people. We still die, our sacred sites still are paved over, our dead dug up, our children stolen and mis-educated. Missionaries search the jungle for the last of us. It hurts me to think about the many atrocities we may have been able to prevent had we Indian traditionalists, (for whom the American Holocaust still burns freshly) been able to tell a true history of our own people. I envy my Jewish relatives for serving their people so well. Our Indian leaders have seen fit to sell our history so the Whiteman can bend it to fit the myth they use to avoid history's judgement. Better for tourism in Washington D.C. too. The Indian artifacts to be displayed in Washington and New York would be much better displayed by the people they were stolen from (or bought, same thing) upon their own reservations and homelands. If Americans want to know about my Tribe, the Ponca, they should learn from us, here at our home, they might invigorate our economy and begin to see us as Poncas and not "Indians." By coming here they might realize that after 500 years, vanishing is no longer an option. The dispersal of the Smithsonian collections back to the Tribes would benefit our children the most. They would realize the artistry and beauty of their peoples' history and the value of their Nations. They would come to understand that the years since white contact have been only a short, ugly wart on the beautiful history of our people. It would give them faith that one day we will pass back into beauty. Artifacts in Washington DC are dead, cut-off relics in nothingness. At home, they are freed from limbo and recharged with life and need. Even Artifacts need to be Ponca, or Navajo, or Makah. Americans sensibilities will have been spared at the cost of continuing depredations against Indian people. Americans will go to the Holocaust Museum and be told the horrible truths of what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jews. They will cry for the victims and mourn with the survivors. In the end they too will be determined to protect the Jewish people from a repeat of their Holocaust. All thinking people support this. They will also be comforted (and exempted) to know that America defeated the Nazi, stopped the killing and helped Jews return to their homeland. Next, Americans can walk over to the museum of 'Indian' history. They will be amazed and pleased at the beauty of our past. Scenes of tipis, tanning hides and pastoral living will hide the blood covering every-square-inch of America. Our blood. They will go home marveling at our ancient art and beauty and a little sad we had to pass into history because our buffalo suddenly "vanished." They may even feel a twinge of guilt at the part their ancestors played in our demise. But they will go away without seeing or knowing the "time of horror" each and every Tribe went through upon contact with the European. They will go home without realizing how much of the slaughter was an officially inspired, government planned, racist policy of genocide. They will not realize the depth of the crime committed so they will not understand the crimes being committed today or the need for reparations to heal the devastation. They will not understand that there were entire Societies for whom the "final solution" worked. Entire Tribes, as whole and complete as the Jewish Tribes, were completely erased from Mother Earth. Their language will never be heard, their poetry, music, science and art is lost to the world, because they met a people who believed in their own, god given superiority and the inferiority of all else. (The base cause of all genocide). They will go home without feeling the need to help Indian Nations secure their own homelands or becoming determined there never be another American Holocaust. Worst of all, they will go home not knowing that our people still suffer ongoing policies of genocide and attacks on our existence. Missionaries and Governments still work and plan to erase us from the face of our Mother Earth. Indian Country, from the Arctic to Antarctica, is still awash in the blood of our People. Should American Indians be suspicious about the placement and content of these two Museums? Jew and "Indian?" Did it take some C.I.A. psy-war expert to figure out how best to cover-up the murder of over 200 million people? Will this museum, with a mere nod to the 500 year holocaust, stand as the permanent enshrinement of the American lie and the final resting place of Indian history? I believe there should be a holocaust museum on America's National Mall, in America's Capitol city. But not one of the European disaster. It must be a Bright Red Museum of the American Holocaust! It must call the roll of entire Nations of beautiful people who succumbed to the genocidal onslaught. "IT MUST BEGIN OUR TIME OF MOURNING BY ENDING OUR TIME OF FEAR." For all my relations. Carter Camp is a member of the Ponca Nation and an active member of the American Indian Movement CONNECT: Carter Camp cartercamp@xxxxxxxxx Never Giving
In
by
Ramona Africa of the MOVE Organization who spoke on February 8, 2003 at the
Afri-Ware Bookstore in Oak Park,
Illinois
On May 13, 1985, the city of Philadelphia, with
federal support, dropped a bomb on a house in a Black, middle-class West
Philadelphia neighborhood. The bomb and the fire that engulfed the house burned
alive five children and six adults. As potential survivors ran from the home,
they met with police gunfire and were forced to run back inside to their death.
There were only two survivors: an eleven year-old child named Birdie Africa, and
Ramona Africa who, with her body covered in burns, was taken into police
custody. Even though hundreds of police and fire officials were already on hand,
the fire from the bomb was allowed to spread through the evacuated neighborhood.
Sixty homes over a two-block area were destroyed, leaving over 250 people
homeless. I
think that the message I want to get across to people is that our fate is in our
hands. This is something that the MOVE Organization was made to realize by
MOVE's founder, John Africa. John Africa taught that the only way this system
continues to operate is by convincing you, me, all of us to feed it our energy
simply by believing it, trusting it.
John Africa broke that cycle with MOVE. John Africa showed us our own power given to us by true God, our momma, mother nature, the coordinating force of life that controls all despite man. It is because of that understanding that I could go through a May 13th and come out strong, the reason all MOVE members can bear all that this system can come at us with, and continue to be committed to be revolutionary. Never ever give in. MOVE people understand that victory is in consistency. It's in never giving in. Victory is not a situation. Victory is not in so-called "winning a battle". There may be battles, but this system, this government is at war with us. So it ain't about that, it's about the whole thing. MOVE people understand that victory is in never giving in, no matter what. The only way you are defeated is if you give in and stop fighting. But as long as you are fighting, as long as the flame of resistance exists in you, and you demonstrate that, as long as you fight for yourself, for freedom, consistently, I don't care what happens to you. You are not defeated. You are victorious. This message is very simple but is also very potent and powerful. It is the reason that the system dropped a bomb on the MOVE Organization. It's the reason that the system attacked MOVE in 1978 under the regime of Frank L. Rizzo and attempted to exterminate MOVE. The government would use the media to have you believe that the May 13th bombing happened because some Osage residents complained about MOVE and said that we were bad neighbors and that we did all kinds of stuff. All you have to do is ask yourself one question. Since when does this government care about black people complaining about their neighbors? When did the FBI start getting involved in neighborly disputes? When did the US Justice Department care about a handful of black people complaining about their neighbors? It's crazy isn't it? Obviously, that wasn't what was happening. This government came at MOVE because John Africa unleashed the truth, because John Africa's MOVE organization is moving on this system, exposing, refusing to accept it. The system uses all kinds of words to enslave and imprison and trick and con. They got the biggest con going that you could ever imagine. But yet they lock people up for scams, for cons. They got people believing in words like "legal". They got people believing that "legal" is synonymous with right when legal is legal and right is right. John Africa proved that they're not the same thing. Because you can be legal, do what's legal, and be wrong. But you can't be right and be wrong. Slavery was legal. The holocaust was legal. The racist apartheid government of South Africa was legal. But none of these things were right. Resisting, revolting against, escaping those things, understanding the tricks the system uses to enslave -- John Africa cleared our minds of confusion. And when this government put our sisters and brothers in prison for 100 years each for a murder that it was obvious to everybody, particularly the government, that our family could not have committed, that our family was innocent of, they want to get in our face and tell us that they had their "legal" trial, that they were "legally" sentenced, that they are "legally" in prison. What does that mean? You have a United States Supreme Court that took a case of a Spanish brother in Texas (Herrera) who was convicted of first degree murder and his attorney got some new information. The person who actually committed the murder came forward, confessed, gave all the details. The Spanish brother's lawyer went running into the US Supreme Court filing a petition saying, "Look, stop, you've got to give this man a stay. We have new information, We know who the real murderer is." You know what the Supreme Court said 'legally'? They said, "Well, we don't care. This man had his day in court. He exhausted all of his appeals. He's this close to being executed. At this point, innocence is not the issue." And they proceeded to execute this man. Proceeded to execute him. Now, if innocence is not the issue, what is the issue? That's what they said legally. And they expect the people to accept this and the problem is that too many people do. The MOVE organization is a family of revolutionaries that don't accept it, that never will accept it. We ain't going to teach our children to accept it. We're not going to do that. They don't have enough bombs, enough jails, enough prisons, enough prison guards, enough cops, enough guns and bullets and courtrooms. They don't have enough to make us accept that kind of insanity. We will never accept it and that's why they want to exterminate MOVE. We are fighting right now, continuously fighting, for the release of our innocent sisters and brothers. They have been in prison 25 years this year: my sister Debbie Africa and my brother Mike Africa, two of the MOVE Nine. Debbie was eight months pregnant with her son when she was arrested in August of 1978. She gave birth to her son in September of '78. That boy, Mike Jr., will be 25 this year. He is married with two children of his own. He has never been with his parents except on a prison visit his entire life. Now, we're supposed to accept that? That's supposed to be okay with us? And now his children, another generation of MOVE is supposed to grow up. Mike didn't know his parents and now his children are supposed to never know their grandparents because of this system? You tell me why we should accept that. They got our brother Mumia sitting on death row and are trying to con you once again into believing that their interest is justice, that they really believe Mumia is a murderer and that he belongs in prison and belongs on death row. I'm not going to burn my energy trying to convince people of Mumia's innocence. I know he's innocent and they know it too. But regardless of that fact, now are they going to get in my face and tell me that they're interest is justice and that Mumia belongs on Death Row and should be executed because he's a murderer. How come the people who were clearly seen on national and international television dropping a bomb on me and my family, burning babies alive, how come they ain't sitting on Death Row? How come they're not sitting in prison next to the parents of these babies that they murdered, doing a 100 year sentence? How many cops you know on Death Row? How many rich people you know on Death Row? How is it that nine people wind up in prison for 100 years each, a total of 900 years, for a murder no one saw them commit, and meanwhile, the people who murdered their babies -- that the whole world saw -- keep their jobs, continue to collect their paychecks and pensions, never get charged with anything, never go to jail for anything, but their interest is justice? They want us to accept that they want to murder our brother Mumia? And that's supposed to be okay? No, it's not. MOVE is not gonna hallucinate that they want to do it in the interest of justice. We don't believe in hallucinations. And that's all that would be, to think that they're interest is justice. It's not. This is the work that MOVE people have been doing for over 30 years and we have paid dearly for it. For simply telling the truth. For simply speaking out freely like they say we have a right to do. MOVE people have been beaten up, beaten into broken limbs and unconsciousness. Our pregnant women have been beaten, stomped, kicked into miscarriages. Our babies, knocked to the concrete and trampled to death. Our family attacked by hundreds of cops. Our family drowned in six feet of water with tear gas all around and then they end up in jail with 100 year sentences. We've been bombed and burnt alive, and those of us that survived it -- myself and a young boy survived it -- go to jail for seven years. This is what MOVE has gotten for doing what those in authority say that everybody has the right to do. But again, another con game. They talk about the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence. They quote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights." Who were you talking about? The Africans that they brought here in chains? The Redman that they slaughtered into virtual extinction? Women? Poor whites that didn't own land? Who were they talking about? Who are all these men created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights? Who were they talking about? It was a con game. They talk about the so-called Revolutionary War, the founding of this country. They celebrate every 4th of July, bringing out their red, white and blue bloody war rag, wanting everybody to celebrate. I'm a little confused about something. From my understanding, the so-called Revolutionary War was fought by people who defied legality, who went to war with King George and the government of England, who said 'give me liberty or give me death', and they went to war. They are celebrated every 4th of July. But today, people who take that same position, Mumia, Leonard Peltier, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, the Puerto Rican independentistas, those grandmothers in Big Mountain Arizona take this same position and yet are called urban terrorists and criminals. What makes Nathan Hale a freedom fighter for defying legality and going to war with the government and makes a Leonard Peltier, a MOVE, a Mumia urban terrorists? I don't understand that. Either fighting for justice and what is right despite legality is to be celebrated and applauded or it's to be condemned. You can't have it both ways. It's either or. You have an inconsistency here that has to be explained. The MOVE Organization is not going to allow our enemy, our oppressor to define for us the way to get them off our backs. That's foolish. That's like Jewish people thinking Hitler was going to define for them the way for them to stop him. That's not going to happen. It would be like black South Africans thinking that Peter Botha or some other person in the apartheid government was going to lay out for them the way for them to stop apartheid. It's ridiculous. It makes no sense. MOVE is not falling for this. It is this kind of information, it is the fact that we don't believe in this system and we don't listen to nothing people running this system try to tell us. It's the reason they want to exterminate us. When they tell us something, we won't just accept it. If it's right, we don't have a problem with it. But if it's not right, we're not going to sit there and act like it is. I was in the hospital for about a month or more after the May 13th bombing because of the burns. I didn't go to court for the first time until July. And when I went to court for the first time, they brought me down to the courtroom from the prison and then from the holding cell. And finally the judge comes in and everybody stands but me, and he says, "Good morning, Ms. Africa. Are you aware that the charges against you are..." and then he reads off a laundry list of charges and then he proceeds to speak about 'do I understand that I'm innocent until proven guilty.' I said "Hold on. I don't understand what you're telling me. I came to this courtroom from the prison in handcuffs, escorted by sheriffs. I was brought into this building and put in a jail cell until I was brought down here by sheriffs in handcuffs. Is that how you came to court this morning? You're asking me if I understand that I'm innocent until proven guilty while I'm being treated as if I'm already guilty. I don't understand that." "No, no, no, Ms. Africa. That's not what I mean." I said, "Well, that's what I mean." I'm not a fool. I know when I'm treated as if I'm innocent and when I'm not. But see, they're so used to spitting out those words and having people just accept it that they feel like they can do that. We have to stop that. We have to let those running the system know that their reign of terror is up. That we're not going to sit by and allow business as usual, that we see through their manipulations and that we're not going along with it any more. That is the only way they're going to be stopped. As long as we think their position is valid, we're going to accept it and as long as we accept it, they'll keep doing what they're doing and worse. They have people thinking that it's a crime to defend yourself, to fight for your freedom. Right now, they're asking people to go all the way over to Iraq, to go to Afghanistan and fight, to go to Korea and fight. I don't recall anyone from Afghanistan doing anything to me. I don't recall any Iraqi doing anything to me. I don't recall any Korean doing anything to me. But I do recall a lot what the cops and politicians of this country have done and are doing to me. I wasn't bombed in Korea or in Afghanistan or Iraq. Me and my family, our babies was burnt alive right in Philadelphia in the United States of America by American officials. I don't have the right to fight them for that. But I'm obligated to go over to somebody else's country to fight? In a lot of black history classes and this being Black History Month, they talk about people. Because Muhammad Ali was such a boxing legend, people talk about him during this month. But they talk about his boxing career. That's not what impresses me about Muhammad Ali. What impresses me about Muhammad Ali was that when they tried to make him go to Vietnam and fight, he wouldn't go despite his boxing career. And he knew they were going to mess with him and try to destroy his career. He wasn't no fool, but despite that he took a stand. He said, "No Vietnamese ever called me nigger." He threw his gold medal in the river. He went to jail for his beliefs. He wouldn't let the system manipulate him. But they don't talk about that when they talk about Muhammad Ali. They talk about 'float like a butterfly, sting like a bee'. They don't want that kind of image in young black kids' minds about Muhammad Ali. And that's why it's so important for all of us to do our work for what we put in young people's minds. That's our work. We can't rely on somebody else to do that. We have got to determine who our heroes are, whether it's a Mumia, a Leonard Peltier or a Michael Jordan or a Michael Jackson. Let's be for real here. We have to determine what we're going to look up to, what were going to value, what we're going to teach our children to value and to look to. It's important. It's very important. This is the work MOVE's been doing for the last 30 years now and it's hard work. The revolution ain't out on the street with a gun, or in a courtroom with a law book. The revolution is right here. Because you are as you think and as you believe. If we have to change anything here, we have to change how we think, how we believe. That's the real revolution. And this is what MOVE has been engaged in all of these years. That's why these people can't trick me. That's why we can go into a courtroom and I can speak out like I did. A woman, a black woman who had just been bombed, damn near burnt alive, my family burnt alive, our babies --I was in the hospital for over a month in those people's hands -- but I could still go in that courtroom and see through the lies they were telling, the nonsense that they were putting out and expose it. My belief allowed me to do that because you see, MOVE people don't feel like we have an alternative. Some people feel like they have an option, that they can be involved in this revolution or not. MOVE people ain't that foolish. We know that there are no options because you're in it whether you want to be or not. The only question is whether you're going to let this system run roughshod over you or whether you're going to stand up for yourself. That's the only question. There's no options there and MOVE people understand that. When we go through a hardship like the 1978 police attack on MOVE or the May 13th attack on MOVE, it doesn't make us weak and make us feel like there's no winning and what's the use. I was alone after May 13th. Everybody I lived with in the house was killed; other MOVE people were in jail. I was in the county jail by myself for over a year. I could have said, "That's it. They killed everybody in the house. Everybody else is in jail. That's it." But I never thought like that and neither did my family. None of us did. And after going to court and being sentenced on the charge of riot, up to 16 months to 7 years in prison, the parole board saw me when I was eligible for parole when 16 months was up, and they offered me release. They told me they were willing to release me. They told several of my sisters and brothers who became eligible for parole around that time that they would release them if we agreed to their special condition that we not associate with MOVE at all in any way. In other words, if we severed all ties with MOVE. Well, we told them what they could do with that condition and that's why I ended up doing 7 years. That's why other MOVE people ended up doing 12, 13, 15 years. All of us could have been out in much less time. They thought they might get somewhere after all we'd been through in those years in prison, them saying we killed John Africa in the house, our coordinator. They felt like we were ripe for the picking. We never even thought about it. How many people do you know who would demonstrate that kind of commitment and stay in prison when they were offered a way out? People were trying to get us to rationalize around it: "Just tell them you'll do it and they'll let you out." This thing about trying to get around them is about exposing them. I was supposed to be in prison for the accusation of riot. The parole board in their interview didn't ask me one question about riot. They didn't ask me would I agree not to go to demonstrations or protests or never engage in any riotous activity. They asked me would I stop being in MOVE. Excuse me, but I didn't think I was convicted of being a MOVE member. I was convicted of riot. But it just brought out the truth of why I was really in jail without them being able to get around it in any way. The bottom line is, if we had agreed to leave MOVE, we'd have left jail. The fact that we would not leave MOVE was why we were still in jail. So why were we in jail? For being MOVE members and they couldn't get around it. They were exposed, and I mean exposed internationally because we got letters from people in Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Africa, all over about that parole stipulation. We know the government got letters too and that's why eventually two of my family members ended up getting paroled without that stipulation. They had to back off. We stood our ground. It wasn't MOVE that broke. It was them that broke. That's the kind of example, that's the kind of power you have when you're consistent about what you're doing, when you don't compromise what you're doing. It has nothing to do with Ramona or Will or Delbert or Merle or any other MOVE member. It is our belief that makes us strong and allows us to set a consistent example like that. John Africa taught us you are as you believe. And when your belief is strong, you will be strong as your belief. When your belief is righteous, you will be strong. That's what John Africa gave us, a strong righteous belief and that's what you see coming out of MOVE. It's not something special about us. It's that we have accepted that strength, that righteousness, and it's there for anybody that wants it -- the example that MOVE is setting is to show people. To give people an example that you can be strong, that you can fight for your freedom. That's why that parole stipulation didn't faze us. We were under no illusions about what freedom is as opposed to imprisonment. We knew they weren't offering us freedom. What they were offering us was a foot in the ass if we compromised with them. And they felt like we was weak and accepted that. We'd have never got out from under these people. They'd have been on our back like white on rice. They wasn't offering us freedom, and we understood that. We would not have been free if we had accepted that stipulation just because we were on the street. You know? We were in fact free when we refused to accept that stipulation and stood by our belief. We were free and they got the message loud and clear, that they had not broken MOVE. That they couldn't make us compromise our belief despite all that they had done to us. What more can you do to us? During the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia a few years back we had an anti-death penalty demonstration and one of our brothers, Mike, the son that was born in prison to Deb and Mike Africa, was setting up the sound system and when the demonstration was over and they were breaking it down, and my brother Carlos had drove the green van around and Mike went out in the street to the van to tell Carlos they were breaking it down and getting ready to put it in the van. Well, the cops was just crazy. I know you read and heard all about the RNC. And this cop snatches Mike up talking about "I told you not to go in the street." He handcuffs him and puts him in the wagon. Well, people went crazy coming over to us and saying, "They've got Mike! They took Mike! They locked Mike up!" We were like "What?" We went over there and saw cops all around and we knew we couldn't deal with the regular blue suited cops. We went over there and I told the cop, "I want to see Capt. Fisher-and I want to see him now. You tell him he got a problem on his hands." So Capt. Fisher came over, "What's wrong? What's the problem?" I said, "They locked up our brother Mike. They got him in this van and we want him out." He said, "What happened, what happened?" I said, "Nothing happened. The cops was going crazy. We want our brother back or you got a problem on your hands." And Will and some other younger people as well us and some supporters stood in front of that van and let them know they weren't going nowhere with our brother. Fisher came back, not even 10 minutes later, opened up the van, cut the plastic handcuffs off of Mike and let him go. He was the only person arrested during the RNC that didn't make it down to be processed and charged and arrested. They let him go. Was it because they're scared of Ramona Africa or Pam Africa or Will Africa? ... It's the 30 year example that MOVE has set in Philadelphia that backed them up. They take us serious. I'm not saying that everybody has to be on the front lines, out there fighting, but I'm saying you got to stop accepting everything that these people tell you. You've got George Bush, a warmonger, there talking about Saddam Hussein needs to be removed and causing all kinds of trouble. ... But that's how those running this system are. They don't care about nothing except their status, about keeping this system afloat. Nothing else is important to them. Wife, husband, children, sister, brother, mother, father, no. They got people walking around thinking they got some kind of magical wisdom, they know so much more then everybody else, and it doesn't sound right to me, but they must know. I mean, Bush don't even know you. He don't know you exist. But he's going to make policy and dictate to you about what you've got to do and what you can't do and what you should do. Based on what? It didn't work with his daughters. When you have some kind of direction and wisdom, it's reflected in those closest to you. First of all with yourself. This man --according to him can't even eat pretzels and drink beer. -- but he's going to tell you how to do things? I mean, we need to stop trippin' with these people and start believing in ourselves and our instinct and what we know is right. Make that our life, our freedom. Take it back cause they stole it from us. They took everything right from us and have made people slaves, robots with this system. Made us zombies. They program us and we go right along with what they say and we need to stop that. That's the real threat. That's the danger. And it's proven. They robbed us of our motherhood, our fatherhood, they robbed children of their childhood, robbed you of your happiness, your satisfaction, your freedom, equality, justice, your health. They took it all. And what do you have to show for it? Nothing. But we're going to keep believing in them, keep feeding them our energy? For what reason? We've got to wake up and be willing to do the work necessary to get our freedom back. If there is anything more important to anybody than their freedom, then that's the problem. Freedom should be the most important thing in the world. You've got people out there that if you scratch their car, they'll kill you. But if somebody scratch their child, they won't get that upset. They might not like it, they might say a little something but they won't get like they will with their car. Our priorities are really misplaced and distorted and we need to straighten it out. We need to really deal with what's important and what's not. What is acceptable and what's not. These officials are like spoiled brats because we've allowed them to run amok. You know how children get spoiled? The parents or adults around them let them do whatever they want with no discretion, without defining for them what is right, what is wrong, what is acceptable behavior, what is unacceptable behavior, and the child grows up thinking that they should be able to do whatever they want to do and nobody should say anything. Well, that's how these politicians are. They feel like they should be able to do whatever they want and people should like it. Nobody should try to stop them, nobody should say anything to them. But see, that's the people's fault and we've got to clean up that mess. We've got to let them know the party's over. And it's hard work but it's work that we can't get out of. It may seem hard, but it ain't as hard as what people are experiencing now by not dealing with it. That's the bottom line. That's where it's at. This is what MOVE has been dealing with for over 30 years now. We deal with it across the board. Our fight doesn't begin and end with the death penalty, political prisoners, corrupt politicians, or police brutality. It's all across the board. We deal with animal rights because that's where racism comes from. It's nothing but prejudice. First you look down on animals. Animals are beneath you and the next thing you know, whites are looking down on blacks, blacks are looking down on Indians or Asians or Puerto Ricans, men are looking down on women, adults are looking down on children. It's that seed of prejudice and that concept of superior/inferior. We all came from one source. We got one momma and that's where we all came from. Where's the superior/inferior? Unless we learn to respect and protect life and demonstrate the principal of equality, we ain't gittin' nowhere. Because unless you demonstrate the principle of equality, then you believe in inequality. Now how are you going to complain when you get what you believe? This is what MOVE believes and it's the truth. The simple undisputable truth. We fight for the environment. Because how are you going to be a revolutionary, how are you going to fight and protect yourself, defend yourself if you ain't healthy? How are you going to do that? You better understand what some of them survival training camps is about out there. Them people don't smoke, they don't drink, they work out, they eat a certain way. They do that. And I know you know why. So how are you going to defend yourself, protect yourself, be a strong freedom fighter if you're not healthy? If you're allowing your air to be poisoned, your water to be poisoned, the soil that grows your food to be poisoned? It doesn't work like that. That's why MOVE has been taught the principle of total revolution. It ain't one thing, it ain't no category, it's all across the board. The bottom line is either you respect life, or you don't and when you don't, it shows. And that is what's wrong with those running this system. And that's the poison that they have contaminated everybody else and our young people with. Why do you think Bush has no compunctions about sending our sons and daughters and sisters and brothers over to fight a war and get killed? He don't care about life, about living things. Why do you think young people can shoot and kill each other for a jacket, a necklace, money, a pair of shoes, a pair of sneakers? Because they've been taught that life is unimportant. Things are important. Why do you think cops can shoot at somebody 41 times? Why do you think they can drop a bomb on MOVE the way they did? They don't care about life. Life means nothing. And until life starts really meaning something to us, we ain't going to change it. That's what John Africa teaches and I'm going to leave you with that. Make up your minds here today without any further ado as to what your position is in this revolution. It ain't necessary for everybody to be out on the front lines. That's not what I'm telling you. But what I am saying is that you are obligated to do something. To do whatever it is that you can do. You might be a teacher in a school. Well, what do you have your students do? Talk to them about what's going on. Encourage them to do their papers on real heroes. Let them know what's going on with political prisoners, what's going on in the world today, not the nonsense that they're trying to push on them. If you have a car or a van, offer to pick up papers or equipment or whatever. Baby-sit. If you know others that have young children, there's things going on and they can't go because they don't have a babysitter, get together, hook up a schedule. There is something that everybody can do. There's no such thing as too little time, too little money. There is something based on your situation that you can do. Everybody is obligated to be involved in this revolution. Not for Ramona, not for your next door neighbor, but for yourself and your family. How many more babies got to be burned alive before we realize how serious this shit is? How many more Mumia's have to be sitting on Death Row? How many more Amadou Diallo's do we need? How many more Death Row 10 do we need before we realize the seriousness of what's going on? Bush can get up there and declare war all day long. But is he talking about getting out on the field and duking it out with Saddam Hussein? Or is he talking about millions of young men and women losing their life? For what? We have the power, all we got to do is use it. Bush can say the word, but he can't make it happen if the people say no. The power is in our hands. We just need to understand that. Ona MOVE. Long live MOVE. Long live Mumia. Long live Leonard Peltier, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Marilyn Buck, Puerto Rican independentistas, the grandmothers in Big Mountain in Arizona fighting for their existence. Long live the Zapatistas. Long live EarthFirst! Long live the Animal Liberation Front, the Earth Liberation Front. Long live ALL those who fight for freedom. Who love life, love freedom enough to fight for it. Long live the spirit of resistance. Long live John Africa. Down with this rotten ass system. CONNECT: http://chicagofreemumia.org/ International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia
Abu-Jamal (ICFFMAJ)
4601 Market Street
Philadelphia, PA
215-476-8812
||<<::--::>>||<<::--::>>||<<::--::>>||<<::--::>>||<<::--::>>||<<::--::>>||<<::--::>>|| Pockets of Resistance is published online by Dark Night Press. With each newsletter, our mailing list has grown. We suggest a donation of $12.00/year or whatever you can afford to help us cover our expenses. You can send your donation to Dark Night Press, PO Box 3629, Chicago, IL 60690-3629. You can find back issues on NativeWatch/Z Net at: http://www.horizons.k12.mi.us/~aim/nwindex.html The Dark Night Press website is now under construction. Please visit
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