OAKLAND—On December 14, 2012, a camouflaged gunman burst into the Sandy Hook Elementary School in the wealthy Connecticut suburb of Newtown with a semi-automatic assault rifle and two pistols where he fired more than 100 rounds into the bodies of 20 small children, six adult women and into himself—leaving a total of 27 dead and many wounded. All of the victims and the shooter were white.
Surely, incidents like this which occurred in Connecticut will be used by the State as justification to clamp down on the circulation of guns and firearms throughout this country.
Of course, this repression will come under the guise of the "war on (domestic) terror." However, what is less certain, is that the "terrorists" targeted by the imperialist state will never be white, like the man who massacred those children in Connecticut.
In the process of writing this article, a Google search was conducted with the key words “terrorism in Connecticut.”
Out of 9,450,000 hits, only two made reference to the shooting the Connecticut mass murder. The other 9,499,999 were about the Black and Brown “terrorists”.
Even as ruling class media refers to the CT shooting as one of the worst in U.S. history, it will never do so at the cost of tainting the politically “pure” image of the white man.
White men are described as pioneers, visionaries, champions of democracy, civilizers and trailblazers. Terrorists? Never!
This is despite the irrefutable history of rape and pillage, the blood of Africans and Indigenous people of the North American continent that white people have on their hands.
Just as the general white population has experienced unconditional exempt status from the category of criminal and terrorist, so has white power as a whole
We must remember that the U.S. government and military itself is the biggest terrorist to have ever existed.
Just days before the CT shooting, U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama made an announcement that he was sending a convoy of troops armed with Patriot missiles to the Middle East for the expressed purpose of stopping the use of "Weapons of Mass Destruction," the same excuse they used for killing over a half million Iraqi children.
Such an offensive would be the latest page in volumes of history of U.S. terror inflicted against oppressed peoples, with no tears shed by U.S. rulers or the white population.
In a society ruled by the oppressor, the “terrorist” are always characterized as those among the oppressed—those who represent some type of threat to the status quo.
In fact, the "terrorist" is the entire oppressed population, especially when we are engaged in generalized resistance.
The Department of Homeland Security is in place to secure the political and economic interests of the white ruling class—which means carrying out a general campaign of repression against oppressed communities and the organizations who struggle in their interests.
This is evident in the State of Pennsylvania Homeland Security’s private contract with the Institute for Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR).
“The Institute for Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR), is an Israeli-based so-called "anti-terror" counterintelligence organization that received a $125,000 contract from the State of Pennsylvania (homeland security) to compile a list of organizations it considers to pose a threat to the status quo.”
“…the list that had been compiled by the ITRR included the name Diop Olugbala/Wali Rahman, President of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM).”
The so-called "war on terror" is a tactic used by the imperialist state to maintain its control of a system built on sucking the resources of virtually the entire world population.
The “war on terror” is a means of crushing the resistance of those who would dare to struggle for their freedom. This war keeps the big time gun manufacturers' profits at an all-time high. We must expose the true nature of the "war on terror" and the special relationship that imperialism has with African and oppressed people.
The strategic enemy of Africans and oppressed people is the U.S. imperialist State
Whether in Uganda, Palestine, Colombia or Oakland, it is the imperialist state which stands between the people and our freedom.
If the imperialist state is to be destroyed, it will be as a consequence of the masses of oppressed and exploited Africans organized to fight for their own self-interests.
That is to say that the masses of Africans will be mobilized to the call to join the resistance based on their relationship to a program that calls for quality and community-controlled housing, police, healthcare, education etc.
In the final analysis, it is a politically educated African community, informed by revolutionary theory, which will become an irreversible force that will crush imperialism.
It is for this precise reason that the U.S. imperialist state goes through such measures to deny the African community access to guns and firearms.
It creates special laws applicable only to us, to ensure that we do not have access to guns. For in the hands of the oppressed, guns can be used to destroy the oppressor and its state apparatus.
Therefore, the demand by Africans for the right to bear arms is met up with the response of a war against “crime, gangs, drugs, terror” etc.
Never is it allowed in the forum of public debate the notion of Africans and oppressed people having the right to pick up arms against our oppressors—and to do so can quite possibly result in extreme political repression, imprisonment and even murder.
This is what happened to the Black Panther Party and other forces in the Black Revolution of the 1960s.
For these reasons, InPDUM approaches the question of guns and the African community’s right to bear arms as a serious one with clear political and legal implications.
We start the discussion with the understanding that the U.S. law is colonial law. It is the opinion of the white ruling class, the slave master.
It is used to maintain a system of oppression and exploitation of African people, period. Therefore, there is no such thing as a U.S. law that the African should respect or abide by.
However, in the absence of power, we as Africans and as a movement must recognize the constraints of colonial law.
To not do so could bring serious consequences. But we must always struggle for more and more space within which we can carry out revolutionary struggle.
We must push the State back through democratic struggle.
This in part means that we must expose the contradictory and colonial nature of the "gun laws" and prevent the state from justifying and enforcing those laws.
More importantly, this will serve to help the masses come to correct conclusions around the dictatorial nature of the state which enforces anti-black and colonial law only through force.
Through the Campaign for African Community Self-Defense, InPDUM has held “Uhuru Law Schools” as it relates to criminal and gun laws.
Secondarily, this process serves to educate the people about what their "legal rights" are with regards to guns. However, primarily this process serves to expose the state’s disregard for law and thus mobilizes the people politically to challenge the colonial laws and the state itself.
It is important that we understand that InPDUM is not an army. An army is an organization whose primary task is to make armed struggle on behalf of and in the interests of a particular social force or sector within that social force.
In revolution, armed struggle is but one phase—that if carried out or initiated prematurely can result in deadly consequences for the revolutionary organization and the community it claims to represent.
Further, if such struggle is carried out by forces who are not ideologically clear, you will have a dangerous situation for the masses and the revolution as well.
On March 23-24, the International Peoples Democratic Uhuru Movement will hold its annual international convention. The theme of the convention is One Africa! One Nation! Protect and Defend Our Own through Organized Resistance!
The question of revolutionary resistance against the imperialist state will be dealt with during a panel called “In the struggle against colonialism, any act of African resistance is an act of self-defense.”
Comrades, these are very dangerous times, although they are also times filled with great opportunities. We must be responsible, strategic and HIGHLY disciplined in the way we organize – and we must ALWAYS maintain our ties to the masses.
One Africa! One Nation!
Protect and Defend Our Own Through Organized Resistance!
Forward to the InPDUM Convention!
