This year’s African Liberation Day (ALD) in Paris, France on Saturday, June 2, drew Africans from Belgium, Germany, Sweden, the UK and around France who were ready to complete the struggle to liberate and unite Africa and all its resources.
The event was organized by the African Socialist International (ASI) and was the first African Liberation Day ever held in France. This also marked the 40th anniversary of African Liberation Day mobilizations as well as the 40th anniversary of the founding of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), a revolutionary organization that is committed to the liberation and unification of Africa and African people worldwide under the leadership of the African working class.
Over 250 people participated at the event held at the University Paris 8 in Saint-Denis, Paris.
The event was opened with a welcome from Markus of APSP Belgium, who introduced the APSP-led Uhuru Movement to Africans based in France and announced the dynamic opening speech of Chairman Omali Yeshitela, who pointed out the historical crisis of imperialism “that has its genesis in the fact that oppressed people’s around the world are struggling for our emancipation.“
Chairman Omali Yeshitela declared that the meeting was a part of the struggle of African people to win our emancipation rather than a cultural celebration and emphasized our responsibility to organize to free our Africa and to free our people in the face of the deepening crisis of imperialism! For the French front of the African Revolution this also means to organize “to demand from France what the neocolonial puppets put in power by France do not have the courage to demand: we want all of Africa’s resources returned to Africa now!“
Penny Hess, the Chairwoman of the African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC), a revolutionary anti-imperialist organization of white people that works under the leadership of the APSP and stands in solidarity with the struggle of Africans and other colonized peoples, demonstrated the historical complicity of white people with parasitic capitalism as they sit on the pedestal of enslavement, genocide and colonialism. In her presentation, Hess introduced the work the APSC does in white communities to break the colonial unity that most white people have with U.S. or European imperialism and showed that the APSC is a real solidarity movement.
Presentations at ALD conference address broad spectrum of imperialist wars and attacks against African people
The ALD conference included presentations that addressed the broad spectrum of imperialist wars and colonial attacks against African people demonstrating that Africans are under the same attack no matter where we reside — a starting point of analysis that is often veiled by the African petty bourgeoisie in France. The program served as a program for revolutionary organization, introducing the only solution to overthrow the system of parasitic capitalism.
That solution is the building of one single worldwide African revolutionary Party that works under the leadership of the African working class. That Party is the African Socialist International.
The event was moderated by Comrade Markus and emceed by Comrade Lusila of APSP France and Comrade Unia of APSP Germany who introduced the presenters.
The first panel entitled “African Women on the Move!“ covered the principle of our belief that African women have the rightful place as equal partners and leaders in the forward motion of the development of human society. Therefore, there will be no African Revolution without the participation of African women.
Within this panel, Ofilia Muendakani, President of the Association Femme du Kivu (AFK) and Franck Ndinga presented their work on the impact of the war on African women and children in Kivu, Congo.
The powerful presentation of Comrade Dr. Aisha Fields, who introduced the incredible and self-sustaining work of the All African People’s Development & Empowerment Project (AAPDEP) in general and in Sierra Leone in particular, summed up the first panel.
Dr. Fields called on participants to join AAPDEP to internationalize our struggle for self-determination and against charity, which won unity with the audience.
Touch One! Touch All!
The second panel on “Police Terrorism, Mass Incarceration, Land Grabbing, Immigration Assaults on African People“ consisted of three presentations from Mouctar Bah of the Initiative in Remembrance of Oury Jalloh, Abraham Habtemariam of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement-Germany, Franco Lollia of Alliance Noire Citoyenne (La Brigade Anti-Negrophobie) and Kwabena Gyakye Kimathi, who is the Europe Regional Organizer of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM).
Bah and Habtemariam gave an update on the case of Oury Jalloh, a brother burnt alive by the German police in January 2005 in a police holding cell in Dessau, Germany. They reported on the actual outcomes of the case and the terrorism and repression they have experienced during their fight for justice for Oury Jalloh.
Lollia reported on the actions of their collective and on how the French government uses police terror to solve its crisis at our expense. His presentation furthermore highlighted how the Brigade Anti-Negrophobie is criminalized not only by the French State but also by the African petty bourgeoisie in France.
Comrade Kimathi introduced the history, work and objectives of InPDUM, a revolutionary mass organisation that functions under the leadership of the APSP and that has worked to bring the masses of African people back into political life after the military defeat of the Black Revolution of the Sixties. He explained different forms of counterinsurgency waged against our communities and stressed our right to resist against the background of the African rebellions in France in 2005 and the Black August Rebellions in London in 2011.
We say that it is correct to resist oppression and that we have a right to resist! Kimathi therefore revealed and emphasized the necessity to get organized into one international movement that organizes mass resistance and called on all Africans who want to see an end to these vicious attacks on our communities to join and support InPDUM to build its capacity and be the functioning mass organization of the African community that it needs to be.
The panel was outstanding in the landscape of the African political events usually held in France as it made clear our necessity and responsibility to organize African resistance internationally under one single revolutionary mass organization: The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement!
The panel section was closed by Comrade Likay of APSP UK, who introduced the first bilingual Burning Spear in the history of The Burning Spear newspaper; the voice of the International African Revolution, published continuously since the 1968.
The third panel entitled “Elections and Imperialism in Crisis“ included presentations from African forces from Mali (Boubou Sissoko of l’Association Diasam), Congo (Mali Pepe Munguama from l’Association Shomari), Senegal (Aissatou Badiane of l’Association Njacaar), Madagascar (Thierry Ralaimihoatra), Ivory Coast (Qaa Nafoore of Collectif Ausar) and Haiti (Boukman from Kamayiti ). Boukman reminded us that nothing has changed in Haiti despite all the funds collected by NGOs and other charity experts that have gotten richer on the back of our suffering.
Idealist approaches within some presentations — approaches used by academic historians, a widely represented approach to analysis in France as one of the strongholds of Egyptology — were successfully neutralized by the members of the Uhuru Movement and the audience.
As we are materialists, we read history from a materialist standpoint that analyzes our relationship to this social system. This capitalist system was born parasitic. That is to say that parasitic capitalism was born through sucking the life blood of Africa and African people. Slavery, colonialism and worlwide terror were the tools used to build this system. A system which is in deep crisis and will be overturned through the African Revolution!
ASI Secretary General Luwezi Kinshasa presented a marvelous conclusion in which he put forward the solution to analyze all the problems presented and referred to in the sections of each panel of the event: African Internationalism!
He then announced Chairman Omali Yeshitela, the founder of the Uhuru Movement, ASI, APSP, AAPDEP and InPDUM as the giant who has developed the theory of African Internationalism, a theory of practice not to just theorize about the world or understand the world, but to change it!
SG Kinshasa pointed out that Chairman Omali Yeshitela has solved all the questions around the African Revolution, questions of political, organizational, ideological, strategical and tactical nature.
This our time!
Chairman Omali Yeshitela gave an incredible and powerful keynote presentation on the nature of parasitic capitalism, on how we will overthrow this system and about the nature of this meeting: “This is not a cultural celebration, and as much as we love them, we haven’t heard a drum today. It is because we think that this is very serious, that the conditions of African people in the world today are very serious and we have work to do and this is a meeting about going to work.“
The Chairman declared this day as the beginning of an era where we begin to work for Africa and for ourselves.
He broke down the understanding of African Internationalism, a scientific understanding of the world and our conditions of existence in the world as African people.
Revealing the objective truth that feudalist Europe was poor and full of diseases when “we met Europe,“ Chairman Omali Yeshitela clarified that Europe “rescued“ itself from its poverty through primitive accumulation of capital, which was the enslavement of African people — the first commodity of capitalism — and the attacks on Asia and the Americas. He explained that this is the genesis of capitalism.
He explained that the “same process of slavery and colonialism that united Europe disunited Africans and other people around the world.“ Chairman Omali Yeshitela then introduced the importance of the African identity for a liberated and united Africa.
Referring to the struggles of many anti-racist groups and organizations in France, he made clear that our fight cannot be against racism, because “racism is the ideological underpinning of capitalism. Our struggle is not against racism, our struggle is for power over our own lives!“
The participants were on fire and expressed their unity with the call to unite the struggle for the liberation and unification of our people and our Africa!
“It is one Revolution, one Africa, one Nation!“
Chairman Omali Yeshitela called for the building of the French front of the African Revolution, that is the APSP France. He said that in this critical period of an uneasy equilibrium between the past and the future, we have to organize and to take control of our future!
Chairman Omali Yeshitela called on everyone to get involved in building this future through one African Revolution led by the African Socialist International.
He showed that European and U.S. imperialism represent the main contradictions we are facing as a people, a statement that sparked discussion during the question and answer part of the event.
Revolutionary fashion
Members and sympathizers of the Uhuru Movement performed a fashion show at the end of the event and presented their label Mosisa that recognizes and emphasizes the role of African women in our history and salutes African culture.
The major success of the event reveals that this is our time and that the Uhuru movement and the ASI in particular is rapidly growing among African people in Europe.
Forward to African Revolution!
