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Saturday, April 6, 2024

Black Panthers and Colonialism

 This article was written a few days after May 1, 1998, after meeting some of the Black Panthers in Los Angeles, at the funeral of Eldridge Cleaver. It was published in Palestine Times around the year 2000. The paper stopped publishing in 2007. Links to the original issue are: 

https://web.archive.org/web/20010504044545/http://www.ptimes.com/issue86/articles.html#13

http://www.ptimes.com/issue86/articles.html#13

 

Black Panthers and Colonialism

By Fazeel Azeez Chauhan

The Civil Rights Movement heroically reversed the effects of slavery in America. Even today, it is important to understand what strategies were used to create slavery so that we can better defend ourselves. The British Colonialists used the same tactics to create self-hatred among the natives of India.

What is the process that turns a human being into a creature of self-hatred and self-doubt whereby the enslaved becomes fully controlled and fearful of another person? The slave master uses the process known as "seasoning" to condition slaves. Strong men and women are broken down, tortured and stripped of their dignity through seasoning. The process re-makes the person into an image, pleasing to the oppressor.

To maintain fear and control, seasoning usually involves the enforcement of five strategies:

1- Establish and maintain strict rules.
2- Implant in the slave a consciousness of personal inferiority.
3- Make the slave believe that the master has enormous power.
4- Strip the slave of his roots and identity, including his name, culture, history and language. Make the slave admire the standards of "good" conduct of the master, so that the slave longs to be like the master.
5- Impress upon the slave his utter sense of helplessness to create a habit of perfect dependence.

When the slave fears for his own personal life, more than the survival of the group, the seasoning process is complete. This is yet another example of the philosophy of divide and conquer. It creates mistrust, apathy and cynicism among the poisoned society. Similar to the slave masters, the British Colonialists proclaimed proudly, "We will not only rule them, we will control their hearts and souls for generations to come."

On 15 October 1966, the Black Panthers for Self Defense Party was created to combat this racist philosophy, which continued through Apartheid and segregation. The Black Panther Party played an essential role in the Civil Rights Movement. The founders were fed up with the non-violent approach, because African Americans were being killed, beaten, humiliated and oppressed every day. Bobby Seale and Huey Newton decided one day to take matters in their own hands to change the injustices of the status quo. Within an hour, they came up with the goals of their party, those being:

1. Freedom and power to determine the destiny of their community.
2. Full employment for their people.
3. An end to the exploitation of their Black community by Capitalists.
4. Decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings.
5. Education for their people, which exposes the true nature of the American society. They wanted education that teaches them their true history and their role in the present day society.
6. All Black men to be exempt from military service.
7. Immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people.
8. Freedom for all Black men held in jail.
9. All Black people who are brought to trial should be tried by a jury of their own peers, from their own community.
10. They wanted land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. They wanted a Black Colony.

Langston Hughes, a famous musician, was a Black Panther who said, "The Panther in his desperate boldness wears no disguise. He is motivated by the truest of the oldest lies." The text paper "Arm the Masses" proclaims, "What we believe equals revolutionary nationalism and socialism for the Black Nation. Forty million Africans are captured inside the racist, capitalist U.S.A....". To help their community, the Black Panthers designed new and innovative social programmes that continue to this day. These include, but are not limited to, free breakfasts for students, free medical clinics, free clothing and shoes, free education and assistance for the elderly.

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called the Black Panthers "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country". The police and the FBI infiltrated the Panthers through their Counter Intelligence Program to destroy the party and assassinate its leaders. They provoked violence between the Panthers and the U.S. Government. They created internal fragmentation through their propaganda to stop the Panthers' alliances with other groups.

One of the leaders was Kathleen Cleaver. She received a law degree from Yale and is a Professor at Emory University Law School in Atlanta. A reporter, Eldridge Cleaver, joined the Panthers two years after the assassination of Malcolm X (Malik Shahbaz). Eldridge (El Rage) was soon framed with a murder case and the couple had to go into exile in Algeria. Their Muslim son was raised there and in Somalia. Eldridge passed away a few weeks ago.

The Panthers admired the revolutionary Philosophy of Malik Shahbaz, who called for freedom and justice for the oppressed people "by any means necessary". A major activity of the Panthers was policing the police. They confronted the police, equipped with law books and rifles, when it was legal to do so. For further information, read a book or see the movie "Panther". Their common slogan was "Power to the People. Power to the People". We should be grateful to African Americans for their sacrifices. We enjoy several freedoms because they fought to attain these rights for all of us.

 

 

Saturday, January 27, 2024

Sunday, April 9, 2023

9 Parts of Speech: NAP VIA CAP


NAPVIACAP

9 parts of speech

It is easy to remember them using this acronym (by Hamza Yusuf) 

N:     Noun
A:     Adjective
P:     Pronoun
V:     Verb
I:      Interjection
A:     Adverb
C:     Conjunction
A:     Article
P:     Preposition



the source for NAPVIACAP idea is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuQFoYavWyg&t=5566s

at hour and a half into the video 1:32:00

Title is: Ramadan Book Club, and discussing the new translation of Quran by Thomas Cleary



Wednesday, January 4, 2023

Ode to Punk Rock and (old) Hip Hop

Ode to Punk Rock & (old) Hip Hop

I remember delving into punk rock in the early 1980's when a co-worker at Magic Pan restaurant in New Orleans introduced me to "the Clash". Their music became mainstream later with songs like "Rock the Casbah". Like you, Punk rock for me also was an outlet of expression which helped me explore spaces and approaches outside the dominant culture. I really liked the political edge in the music, and the importance of the lyrics. For example in a speech class, I talked about another song by the Clash "Know your rights, all 3 of them". In some of the songs, the Clash (band from UK), mixed Spanish lyrics, like in the song "Spanish Bombs". This multi-cultural approach was very rare in those days.

Moving from New Orleans to Los Angeles in late 1980's, it seemed like gradually Punk Rock became more influential and moved into the mainstream. Mohawk type haircuts, hydrogen peroxide streaks in hair, sleeveless T-shirts and ear piercing became more common and then fashionable. Vietnam was fresh in the minds of Californians, so the mistrust in government and anti-war sentiments were still felt in the local culture. One demonstration of this was a bumper sticker a classmate displayed, "Question Authority". Those were the good old days. Especially after 9/11, the masses became increasingly docile, passive, apathetic and a-political. (Foucault talks about Disciplinarity and Docile bodies). In a complacent and obedient society, powerful, political and empowering music with balls, seems very rare now. And its impact is painfully missed.

In the early 1980's, on WTUL, an ad-free college radio of Tulane University in New Orleans, they started playing rap music with Run DMC's, "You Be illin'". It took 6 or 7 years for this genre to become mainstream. But the beginnings of rap music was passionate, heartfelt and powerful statements from the grassroots, on the status quo of America, including social issues, political impacts on daily life, racism, poverty, inequities, etc. It is a tragedy that rap and hip-hop mostly devolved into glorification of gangs, crime, narcissism, showing off, competition, violence, guns, drugs, pimps and "ho's".

In retrospect,  the Punk rock I was exposed to was political, leftist music predominantly from White musicians. Which later influenced the birth of a new genre of Music of the 1980's, called "New Wave". Today, Punk rock is no longer significantly popular. The other genre which started becoming popular also from the 1980's, rap / hip-hop, has been mostly music made by Black people. It has become mainstream and seems to be mostly serving the purpose of entertainment (and glamorizing the prison industrial complex). It rarely seems to make any meaningful statements, like it used to, 30 years ago. For example, Ice-T who used to sing about police brutality in 1992, now seems to be promoting thug life? Rap / Hip Hop misses countless opportunities to incorporate social and political content into the music. For example, among my frequent sources of inspirations are  amazing Black authors and researches  like Joy DeGruy, Cornell West, Alice Walker, and Black Panthers like professor Angela Davis of UC Santa Cruz. Resmaa Menakem's powerful line "Black bodies are not defective" can easily be incorporated in a good rap song.

But even popular musicians with million$ in resources, rarely employ, or get inspired by, or incorporate the work of famous Black (and other) researchers and authors. When uplifting and empowering ideas are incorporated in music, it ripples and has a moving effect which resonates and reverberates in the heart of society. For example the work of the rap artist "Immortal Technique" is a breath of fresh air. It can be said that a band like "Rage Against the Machine", draws from the elements of Punk Rock and Hip Hop. That amazing band is also painfully missed (since it broke up a few years ago). It was the voice of for example, social justice and the anti-war movement. Thank God for Music. In Urdu there's a saying: Music is Nourishment for the Soul. In addition, when music also packs a punch, it can not only move the body to dance, it can also empower a person with constructive energy, and  can light up a community to impact positive movements. In the meantime, music helps us relax and chill out