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African Liberation Day:  Our Institution for Awareness and Capacity Building

5/25/2016

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The capitalist system has it's ideological institutions.  It has it's vehicles for shaping, promoting, and advancing it's backward narrative of why it should continue to dominate and exploit the majority of people on the planet.  And most of you are firmly entrenched in one way or another in perpetuating capitalism's ideological institutions.  Every year you ask someone "what are you doing for the 4th" you are perpetuating that there is legitimacy to the fraudulent concept that July 4th somehow could represent freedom and democracy when many of the authors of the so-called declaration of independence were slave owning racists as well as committed imperialists and patriarchal maniacs.  Every year you wish someone a "Happy Thanksgiving" you are perpetuating the lie that we should be thankful for the fact Europeans celebrated their brutal butchering of the Pequot people of the Eastern seaboard.  Every year you wish someone a "Happy Veterans" Day you are perpetuating the myth that anyone who fights for U.S. imperialism is performing a heroic act when what they actually are doing is being economically strangled into joining a gang that must at all times be dedicated to fulfilling the military objectives of the most barbaric and criminal regimes in human history. 

Still, everyone participates and perpetuates these fake institutions without so much as batting an eye.  And hundreds of years of everyone playing their part in carrying out this charade has produced a situation where the lies are accepted as truth today and no one seriously challenges that sick and highly dysfunctional vision for the world we live in.  Consequently, we know that if we want to defeat their backward and exploitative institutions, we have to create and perpetuate some institutions that advance notions of human dignity and truth.  African Liberation Day (ALD) one of those institutions.  It is an institution that is designed to bring focus into the vision of African people everywhere.  It has as its objective the task of helping perpetuate the concept that everyone of African descent in the world today, wherever you live, wherever you were born, whatever language you speak, are a part of the African nation and that Africa is your national home.  There are over 900 million people of African descent, or Africans, in the world today.  We live in well over 100 countries around the world in plentiful numbers.  We speak literary thousands of languages and we have many different customs and practices that we engage in.  Nevertheless, the things that make us similar are much more important and significant than everything that makes us different.  For example, we are all in positions of subservience to the imperialist system.  We are all reliant on imperialism to provide the infrastructure for whatever society we exist in.  And, we are all dominated, exploited, oppressed, and brutalized by imperialism.  This is true no matter who we are, where we are, and what we know.  We battle police terrorism in Britain.  We battle police terrorism in France.  In Australia.  In Belgium.  In Canada.  In the U.S.  We battle poverty in Haiti, Kenya, Sudan (both Sudans), Jamaica, Honduras, and Mexico.  We fight for dignity in Azania, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, and Germany.  The message from ALD regarding all of that is the key that brings all of those things into focus at once is that we suffer as we do because we lack dignity and respect.  And, we lack dignity and respect because we do not have the capacity to determine our own lives.  We are totally dependent upon the societies that oppress us for our basic needs.  Plus, imperialism needs to continue to perpetuate the myth of white supremacy in order to justify its brutal treatment of us in order for it to continue to steal and exploit our human and material resources.  So, ALD comes along to tell the African people that we are Africans period.  We can keep and enjoy all of our specific identities.  I will always love soul and R & B music.  I will always love fried fish and greens, but I understand that none of these things will bring us the liberation that we need and deserve.  So, enjoy our identities, but recognize that until we unite as one people and rally to bring victory and liberation to the African continent, regardless of where we decide to be physically, our people will never be free anywhere on Earth.  This is the message of African Liberation Day and the idea is to create an institution of ideological thoughts and practices around ALD just like those that exist around the reactionary institutions within the capitalist system.

African Liberation Day was created by Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana in 1958 as Africa Freedom Day.  In 1963 the name was changed to African Liberation Day (today) and May 25th was designated as the day ALD would be commemorated every year.   Today, 58 years after ALD was initiated, the All African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP) continues to use ALD as an institution to educate and organize our people around the necessity for Pan-Africanism or one unified socialist Africa as the solution to all of our problems.  And for those haters who want to attempt to diminish our work, understand that ALD isn't just an event to highlight the contributions of African people.  It's an institution to rise up all struggles for justice and self determination.  That's why we annually invite the comrades from the Irish Republican Socialist movement, as White as they are, because they are true revolutionaries.  We invite the comrades from the Palestinian struggle and we invite representations from organizations from the Indigenous people's of the Western Hemisphere.  We have these relationships because we recognize that we are not waging our struggle in isolation.  The Irish fight against British imperialism and that imperialism is no friend to Africa or her children so obviously, a victory for the Irish people is a victory for us.  The Palestinians fight zionist israel which is a hip pocket creation of imperialist amerikkka, so a victory for the Palestinians will certainly weaken U.S. imperialism which benefits us.  And obviously, the stronger the American Indian people are with their movement, the weaker U.S. imperialism is which benefits all of us who are also fighting against them.  We believe all of these things, but we feel most strongly attached to the words articulated by that great Pan-Africanist Sekou Ture who said "imperialism will find it's grave in Africa."  The imperialist countries of Europe and the U.S. stand on economies that are based on exploiting Africa so there is no question that the closer we get to Pan-Africanism, the closer we get to wiping capitalist/imperialism off the face of the Earth!


The A-APRP is organizing African Liberation Day in 2016 in cities in Africa, Europe, the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean.  For more information about the ALD location closest to you, you can go to www.africanliberationday.net to find out about ALD activities sponsored by the A-APRP and other African organizations around the globe.  The theme at all A-APRP sponsored ALD activities this year is "Women and Youth on the Frontline!  Forward to Pan-Africanism!  The theme reflects the recognition that women and youth, being critical segments of any society, must be supported and encouraged to engage in full participation on all levels of our society, without restriction, if we are to build the type of mass movement we need to overcome capitalist domination. 

Even if you cannot attend ALD for some reason, don't think that's all to it because its just an event you can try to catch next year.  ALD is an institution so be aware of what it represents and join some organization helping to advance the values contained within it.  This is how we will win!

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    I don't see disagreement as a negative because I understand that Frederick Douglass was correct when he said "there is no progress without struggle."  Our brains are muscles.  Just like any other muscle in our body if we don't stress it and push it, the brain will not improve.  Or, as a bumper sticker I saw once put it, "If you can't change your mind, how do you know it's there?"

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