“My duty and destiny are in Africa, the great and glorious land of your and my ancestry, I cannot, I will not desert her for all things else in this world, save that of my own household, and that does not require it as it will thereby be enhanced.” Martin Delany Martin Delany died on 24 January 1885 two years before the birth of Marcus Garvey. The revolutionary legacy of both men while coming from different eras of the struggle was defined by black nationalism and Pan-Africanism. The Pan-African movement has come a long way producing many revolutionary leaders advancing . . .
Theory Corner
Challenging Binary Gender Roles Using Nkrumahism-Toureism-Cabralism
Thesis Gender binary – the classification of gender e.g. a “man” or “woman” into two, distinct, and opposite categories – is a construct of class development and division and is therefore inconsistent with the humanist values of our Nkrumahist/Tureist/Cabralist ideology. Background The dominant perception of gender in the world today is the gender binary, a concept based on socialization that teaches us that people defined as “men” and people defined as “women” occupy distinct and different roles and functions within society. Within this social construct, women are defined as having the primary function of bearing and raising children. Men are . . .
An Exercise in Dialectics
In both classical physics and quantum physics dialectics involves the propensity of material and immaterial things to move. This motion is responsible for the development of both the material and the immaterial and their transformation from one state to another. Motion is the mode of existence of all real things. This motion is the result of struggle and contradiction between the positive and negative forces within everything. The resulting motion is of two types: movement through time/space and movement or transformation from one state to another. In classical physics, a thing is what it is: a plant, a rock, or . . .
Haiti in the Caribbean
Often, when you mention Haiti in conversation and the anti-imperial struggle that has consistently been waged by the Haitian people against imperialist forces for centuries, you are met with minor acknowledgement and some confusion by the listener. Even in cases where there are those who understand Haiti’s battle against imperialist interventions and incursions – many people are still unclear about: “why Haiti.” This is especially true in the present, where there exists a propagandized belief that there are no broader imperialist aspirations in the Caribbean, insofar as those interests cannot be tied to interests in Latin America, and especially to Cuba. Persistent myths about Haiti and confusion about the nature of politics in the Caribbean have allowed systematic investigations into (neo) imperial enterprises in the broader region to go largely uninitiated. This is all at the peril of failing to contextualize sustained foreign meddling in the Caribbean region and the consistent need by those forces for sustained violence to maintain their dominant position. . . .
Reject Anti-Intellectualism
A disingenuous trend is reemerging, bastardizing concepts of “accessibility” to attack and suppress radical efforts at political education. The focus on consistent ongoing political education is shot down as disconnected from the needs of the people. But these critiques should be seen clearly for what they are: anti-intellectualism masquerading as a faux concern for the elusive “everyday person”. These are not genuine concerns for how people learn (ignoring the array of techniques like creating glossaries, audio recordings of written materials, visual aids or establishing group reading environments), these are attacks on the acts of learning and studying. As an article . . .
Steps to a Socialist Pan-African Movement
A recently published book by Vita books publishers Essays on Pan-Africanism edited by Shiraz Durrani & Noosim Naimasiah contains essays on Pan-Africanism written by Pan-Africanist intellectuals at various times. In its preface, Prof. Issa Shivji says writings on Pan-Africanism never become dated for the desire of Africans globally for freedom continues burning, sometimes dimming into a flicker, at other times shining bright but never stuffed out however strong winds. The book has diverse chapters dating back to Karim Essack’s publication in 1993. Nevertheless, there is an important chapter on the necessity of building a Socialist Pan-African movement by Shiraz Durrani . . .
Social Democracy Will Not Save Us
The Black Liberation Movement in the United States has reached an almost unprecedented level of ideological confusion. Unlike in the 20th century, significant sections of the contemporary Black Left openly embrace an understanding of ‘identity politics’[i] that is based in philosophical idealism.[ii] A somewhat resurgent US Left has, correctly, begun to critique these perceived political errors. Unfortunately, social democrats such as DSA, Jacobin and Cedric Johnson in his award-winning article[iii] add to the ideological confusion. This essay asserts that contrary to the claims of advancing democracy and freedom, social democracy has consistently undermined the struggle for national liberation and socialism. In 1896, Eduard Bernstein, the . . .
Identity Without Responsibility
It’s very difficult to really get to the bottom of an issue with a celebrity at the center. On Hood Communist, we have written and talked a lot about the issues created by celebrity-centered analysis. Once the concept of celebrity enters a room, it stands in the middle of the floor and expands outward in every direction, making it impossible for other issues, like class, to get a word in. The conversation can no longer be about the issue itself, only the spectacle of the celebrity and what we project on our relationship with that person. This is proven true . . .