Interview:
Mumia Abu-Jamal

HANS BENNETT / The Commemorator 1feb04

"Both parties really depend on a very thin slice of the US electorate"

Interview conducted Aug. 24, 2003

[More on Mumia Abu-Jamal | The Black Panther Party]

Illustration by Kiilu Nyasha

Hans Bennett: The Black Panther Party long held a scathing critique of U.S. foreign policy. How did your experience as a Panther shape your views on global politics?

Mumia Abu-Jamal: At an early stage in its development, the BPP became what was called a "revolutionary internationalist party," which meant that they looked to revolutionary anti-imperialist examples around the world. We looked to places like Cuba and the experience of the revolutionaries there like Che Guevara. Mao was very important. His red book was required reading. Frantz Fanon was also very influential. While Fanon was of West Indian heritage, he became very active in the Algerian Revolution.

Because we considered ourselves internationalists, we began to look at the world from a deeper perspective than most people that considered themselves black nationalists as well as many others on the left at the time.

HB: What did the Panthers believe was the motive for U.S. foreign policy?

MAJ: I remember very early in the party's history, an article in the BPP paper by George Murray, (the former Minister of Education and an instructor at San Francisco State University). He set forth the real basis for the U.S. intervention and occupation in Vietnam. He explained that for all intents and purposes, the U.S. capitalists were in search of raw materials that existed in Vietnam like bauxite, which is used to make aluminum and that car companies used to make bumpers, and so on. This was a very powerful argument — particularly when you think about what is happening today in Iraq.

People of the so-called right claim that the U.S. is entering Iraq to pro-mote democracy and get rid of a dicta-tor. It's far more reasonable if you understand U.S. history — especially with the Vietnam situation — that the rulers are interested in oil as a natural resource; as an economic bulwark against the loss of this resource. That's more probable than the claim about democracy and the anti-dictator stance that the state has used. When you have some inkling of U.S. history, you understand that for all intents and purposes, there's never been a dictator that the Americans didn't like, especially when they are one of the many doing the U.S.' bidding.

HB: Many today advocating are criticizing George Bush and his foreign policy. Today it would seem Clinton has been able to kill more Iraqi children with his sanctions than both President Bushes have been able to do combined. Furthermore Clinton named an illegal bombing attack on Iraq in late 1998 "Operation Desert Fox" after a famous WWII Nazi general (obviously much admired by the ruling class). How do you think relations with Iraq would be different today if Gore was President instead of Bush?

MAJ: Some may disagree with me but I do believe that the difference would probably be one of degree and not of substance. As you were mentioning about the sanctions, Clinton waged a low-intensity war all through-out his term, that probably resulted in more Iraqi deaths — here we're making an assumption because we don't really know how many Iraqis have died in the recent war. For the better part of a decade (certainly during the 8 years of the Clinton administration) the U.S. and Britain — as well as most of the west when you think about it — waged a kind of sanctions war on Iraq that denied Iraqi citizens (not the Iraqi government) access to much needed medicines and other things that children, old people and women, again average citizens could not have access to. The economic impact is also almost unheard of — certainly in this part of the world — but hundreds of thou-sands of children have lost their lives over that period of time.

HB: So in terms of hurting the Iraqi people, the Democrats aren't much better?

" They don't care what the people want.    They just care about their corporate sponsors. "

MAJ: Well, that's my impression and the more I study it and look at what people have said in previous generations, I keep coming back to that conclusion. The great internationalist and Pan-Africanist W.E.B. DuBois spoke similarly about those things way back in the 1930s when he criticized the Democrats and the Republicans. He was one who, at a very early stage in U.S. history, talked about the development of a labor party or the support of a socialist party in the U.S. That was quite unpopular and he got tossed out of the NAACP because he was so radical, but he was a very insightful and honest and deeply thinking radical of his time. I'm looking at something, in fact, that he wrote in the organ of the NAACP: The Crisis. He wrote it in 1922 and the editorial he wrote is called "Kicking Us Out."

DuBois writes: "The Democrats won't have us and the Republicans don't want us. Is there anything to do but impotently wring our empty hands? There is, and this is our opportunity. This spells our political emancipation. We are invited not to support either of the old, discredited, and bankrupt political parties. In other words, we are being compelled to do what every honest thinking American wants to do, namely support some third party that represents character, decency and ideals."

"Just as the two old parties have combined against us to nullify our power by a gentleman's agreement of non-recognition no matter how we vote, in the same way they have agreed to nullify the vote of every forward looking, thinking, honest American. The revolt against the smug and idiotic defiance of the demand for advanced legislation and intelligence is slowly sweeping the country. May God write us down as asses if ever again we are found putting our trust in either the Republican or Democratic parties."

This is 1922. He was a very for-ward thinking man, but something very similar of course could be written today when you look at the dilemma that African Americans face when they're dealing with the two major political parties. They really are a corporate party with two heads, but they have the same body, interests and certainly the same bloodstream, which is corporate wealth.

HB: Looking back at the weeks and months leading up the recent invasion of Iraq when we were out in the streets trying to prevent more slaughter at the hands of "our" government, it was really intense. Why do you think we weren't able to stop the war?

MAJ: I think in a way it relates to the previous question. We don't have anything resembling a workers' party, a labor party, or a people's party. We have a corporate party as I suggested earlier. We really have a democratic system in name but not substance. Which means that you can have a president that essentially ignores not just the expressed will of millions of people in the country. I remember reading somewhere that something like 20 million people protested this war all around the world.

It's one thing to ignore the nation-al sentiment that was very clear, but you essentially had to ignore global sentiment to promote this war. That's why he kept talking about "weapons of mass destruction" and saying the UN didn't know what it was talking about. Bush and others claimed to know where all this stuff was. You had Powell in the UN with these ridiculous maps. All of a sudden the maps don't work any more.

Both parties really depend on a very thin slice of the U.S. electorate and according to the last election cycles, the vast majority of the people don't vote anyway. They don't care what the people want. They just care about their corporate sponsors. Literally, they don't give a damn about what the people want, because they just want to protect the wealthy.

HB: Do you think there is some-thing we could be doing differently with our protest tactics so that we can stop the next war?

MAJ: I really do think that people should not have "knee-jerk stopped" when the military campaign started. For the most part that's what happened. I understand that people are conditioned into the "support the troops" stuff. But troops are not independent actors. Military people are told what to do by their leaders and their military leaders are told — theoretically at least — by the political leaders. If anything demonstrations should have intensified,. not kind of decelerated with the mindset that "since it has already started, we can't do anything." I understand why people did it but I think it was the wrong thing to do.

I also think that civil disobedience has its place and people need to think about going to those lengths. I know they're afraid and don't want to go to prison or get hurt. But what's the alternative when what is being imposed on the American people is a kind of imperial occupation and a military stance that will last for generations now?

HB: Anything else that you'd like to add?

MAJ: People need to think in terms of continuing resistance because there are millions of people in this country that really share that position, but they feel isolated and afraid of expressing it.

For more information contact the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal at P.O. Box 19709, Philadelphia, PA 19143 (215) 476-8812 or 476-5416 www.mumia.org or write Mumia:

Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM 8335
SCI Greene, 175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370-8090

The Commemorator is a publication of the Commemoration Committee for the Black Panther Party. Subscribe to The Commemorator at the rate of 1 year for $12 or 2 years for $20. Mail to The Commemorator, 4432 Telegraph Ave., PMB 62, Oakland  CA  94609. Telephone: 510-652-7170