Friday, August 12, 2011

A call for genuine solidarity with African resistance in the UK

Africans protesting at the British Embassy in DC

Below is a statement released by the Uhuru Solidarity Movement on the rebellions in London and a call for genuine solidarity with the struggles of African people for freedom and social justice.

A call for genuine solidarity with African resistance in the UK and around the world

Over a week after the police murder of 29-year-old African man, Mark Duggan, sparked a series of rebellions in Tottenham north London, the British white power government is scrambling to contain the resisting African population who are courageously rising up to challenge the status quo of a social system built on the exploitation and oppression of African people.

Over 1000 people have been arrested in the rebellions, and of those 371 have been charged.

In addition to deploying heavily armed police forces to quell the just resistance of the insurgent African masses, the British government and media have launched an ideological counterinsurgency campaign to criminalize the African youth of Britain.

The British ruling class and their lackeys have worked overtime to convince the general white population that the rebellions are in no way political in nature. Several mainstream news outlets have excluded from their reportage the fact that the rebellions were instigated by the murder of a young African by British police.

The British government has dismissed the rebellions as “riots” carried out by “mobs” of “looters” who are motivated by nothing more than a desire for a free flatscreen television.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has openly denounced the resisting African as “thugs,” “thieves,” “looters,” “spoiled brats,” “villains,” and condemned African youth culture as “a culture of violence.”

The Uhuru Solidarity Movement is calling on white people and other allies of black liberation in the UK and throughout the world to see the London rebellions from a different perspective – through the eyes of the poor and oppressed African working class.

We in the USM understand that the real “culture of violence” is white power imperialism, a culture of genocide and slavery in which the British government has historically played a key role.

African people in the UK, whose very presence on British land is the result of the British enslavement and colonization of Africa, are an oppressed community who are colonized (dominated by a foreign power for the purpose of political and economic advantage) by the British government inside of British borders just as Africans are colonized on the continent of Africa and throughout the world wherever Africans have been dispersed.

Africans are an oppressed and colonized population inside the UK

The colonial division between whites and Africans in the US was exposed in a recently released study of the “wealth gap” between black and white households. Just like in the US, in the UK there is a huge gap between the wealth of whites and African people. The UK’s Department of Work and Pensions has found that 60 percent of African households have no savings at all, compared to 33 percent of white households. The UK’s first Wealth and Assets Survey in 2009 reported that while the average white household had £221,000 (roughly $350,000) in assets, African households had only £15,000. Only 28 percent of Africans own their own homes, compared to 72 percent of whites. http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate-uk/2011/04/08/the-racial-wealth-gap-not-just-an-american-problem/

A report released by the Equality and Human Rights Commission revealed that African people in the UK are incarcerated at almost seven times greater to their share of the population. Five times more African people than white people per head of population in England and Wales are imprisoned. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/11/black-prison-population-increase-england

In the UK, the rate of unemployment for Africans at 14 percent is twice the rate of white unemployment, according to the Office for National Statistics. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=462

The British government has no real program to change these conditions. Instead they occupy the black communities with police. The British police wage a war of occupation against the African communities of London through counterinsurgency programs like “Operation Trident,” the specialized “gun crime” operation responsible for the cold-blooded police murder of Mark Duggan on August 4, 2011. In 2008 alone African people were subjected to 145,000 stop and searches by police. African people constitute less than 3% of the population, yet made up 15% of people stopped by police. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/11/black-prison-population-increase-england

Under the rule of the British white power government, there is no future for the African youth who are forced to bear the brunt of the so-called “austerity measures” that provide an economic safety net for the white population and the British elite who continue profiting on the ever-deepening economic crisis.

The British government has written off this generation of African youth as a generation with no future, no prospects – in short, disposable.

We reject the vicious slander and criminalization of Africans that is being put forward by British PM Cameron and the white ruling class media.

The real looter is the British Empire! Reparations Now!

The Uhuru Solidarity Movement stands in unconditional solidarity with the African masses who are taking to the streets of Britain and fighting back against the system that profits off of their misery and oppression.

We know who the real looters are. The real looters are the British Empire, along with the US and the rest of Europe that raped and looted Africa, the Americas, Asia and the rest of the world for 500 years.

We know who the real thugs are. During the many years when English “bobbies” carried no guns inside Britain, the UK used guns and other violent weapons to wage brutal colonial occupation and genocide against the majority of the world's peoples The British Empire dominated so much of the planet earth that it was characterized as the empire “upon which the sun never set.”

We know who the real thieves are. It was the colonialism, slavery, rape, plunder, pillage, brigandage, and genocide by Europe and North America who ripped off the resources of the rest of the peoples of the world that made them the richest and most powerful countries on the planet.

It is not the impoverished and starving African masses who are the “thieves” and “thugs” and the “looters,” nor is it the African community who are responsible for a “culture of violence.” The real culture of violence is white power. It is a culture of violence carried out by white people for the benefit of white people at the expense of Africans and other colonized peoples.

We want nothing to do with that. We are on the side of the African masses struggling against the white imperialist system.

Imperialism is in a state of profound crisis, caused by the just resistance of the oppressed people of the world who are fighting back to reclaim their land, resources, and self-determination.

As Chairman Omali Yeshitela of the African People's Socialist Party has said, “Anyone who tries to stand up and protect imperialism will meet the fate of imperialism, because the people will be free!”

We support the right of African people everywhere to build an organized resistance and a revolutionary movement for freedom and reparations.

Take Action! Join USM and build "A Day in Solidarity with African People" in your area!

We are carrying out an international campaign to build events throughout the US and Europe called “A Day in Solidarity with African People” as a way to raise resources and support for the African liberation struggle.

Any white person who wants to see a new world must break from complicity with imperialism and join in solidarity with the African Revolution by building “A Day in Solidarity with African People” in your area, wherever you are located.

There's no future in this dying system. The future is in the hands of African workers and oppressed peoples everywhere.

If you are a white person who wants to live in a world without slaves and slave masters, then join the Uhuru Solidarity Movement and work toward a future in solidarity with the African Revolution.

The Uhuru Solidarity Movement is an organization of Euro-Americans and other allies of African liberation who organize under the leadership of the African People's Socialist Party to build principled and material solidarity with African people's struggle for freedom.

Get involved today by joining the international campaign to build “A Day in Solidarity with African People” in cities across the US and throughout Europe – wherever you are located, there is a way for you to jump in to the work of building this movement!

THE REAL LOOTERS ARE THE US, THE UK, AND THE REST OF EUROPE!

AFRICANS HAVE THE RIGHT TO RESIST!

DEATH TO WHITE POWER! VICTORY TO THE AFRICAN REVOLUTION!

TAKE THE PLEDGE OF SOLIDARITY TODAY!

JOIN THE UHURU SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT!

UHURU!