A.S.I. 2005 CONFERENCE SUMMARY
SUMMARY OF THE AFRICAN SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE, 17 TO 20 JUNE 2005, LONDON
From 17 to 20th June, the African people’s socialist party took another a step to bring us closer to the creation of the African Socialist international, a world wide organisation of African workers in alliance with poor peasants, dedicated to build a continental united socialist states of Africa.This conference has happened in midst of deepening crisis of imperialism. It was a conference, free from all panafricanists, anarchists, cultural nationalists and all other obscurantist and radical petit bourgeois influences, which are characteristic of the anti colonial movement in London. It is an international response from the African working class, armed with a clear vision of the future, working overtime to bring into existence, the African Socialist International, the tool of all African workers and poor peasants, dispersed around the world, to defeat white imperialism rulers and black petit bourgeoisie sell out classes in Africa. and around the world.
Africans from England, Holland, Denmark, USA, Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Ivory coast, Jamaica, Zimbabwe, Virginia Islands, Angola, Belgium, Namibia, South Africa, Grenada , and Cameroon participated in this June conference. As it happens every year, representatives from different parts of the African world could not attend the conference due to white imperialist visa requirement, that is effectively use to keep us separated from each other, thus kept Africans from Kenya, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Spain, France and Costa Rica from joining us in London.
This time, the conference was not just an event to hear reports on conditions of African people from around the world, or take part in workshops on unanswered critical philosophical questions that besiege our liberation movement. It was an effort to win forces that would form the African Socialist Interim committee, with the tasks of planning either the next conference or the founding congress of the African Socialist International.
The African Socialist International main resolution document, produced by comrade Omali Yeshitela, the Chairman of the African People’s Socialist party (APSP) was adopted and voted for by the vast majority of the participants, at the previous year in Conway hall, London. It is a guiding booklet that lays the basis of African unity in the struggle to overthrow US and European imperialism and black neocolonial sell out regimes. It calls on all Africans dispersed around the world, who understand that we are one people sharing the same fate and destiny, to create an international a united revolutionary organisation and leadership that will end our isolation from each other, make all of us accountable to each other and also end our dependence on international opportunist allies. The completion of the African national liberation struggle, which have been betrayed in every front by the African petty bourgeoisie, requires nothing less but the building of African socialist International.
This June 2005 event was the sixth ASI building conference, since August 1999 first ASI conference in London. These efforts were preceded by the Chairman Omali Yeshitela attempt, in 1983, touring various European cities in Europe and throughout the mid nineties to win support for the African Socialist international. The African Socialist international is a project of the African Peoples Socialist Party, based on a resolutionof the first congress of the African People’s Socialist Party in 1981, in Oakland, US.
CHAIRMAN OMALI YESHITELA’S OVERVIEW
The Conference opened up with an overview of the crisis of capitalist world system by Chairman Omali Yeshitela, who explained the main source of the current crisis of imperialism is caused by the continuous rise of oppressed people around the world, claiming back the control of their resources and lives for themselves. this rise of national movement of liberation began to escalate with Indian independence in 1947, the Chinese revolution in 1949, revolutionary activities throughout Latin America, rise of Civil rights movement in the U.S, War of Korea, Cuban revolution, African independence in Africa, Viet Nam resistance etc…to the ongoing resistance of Palestinian, Colombian, Iraqis and others, to the struggle for the building of African socialist international we are involved in right now. The rise of national liberation struggles challenges the unilateral access to our resources by European colonial countries.The crisis of imperialism did not star with sept 11, 2001, but was one more evidence of a full blown crisis. The world conference against racism that put the US and then European imperialism on the defensive was another proof of an imperialist crisis, as it condemned slaver and demanded reparations from US and European governments for centuries against African people.
The British police did not carry guns in streets of England, but had guns in colonies of Africa, Asia, Australia in other of repressing its colonized subjects, but subsequent to the end direct colonial rule and import of colonies inside England, the white rules found it necessary to arm the police in streets on Britain to deal with Pakistani, Arabs, Africans and other colonized peoples.
The crisis of US imperialism can be seen in the rise of China and the emerging leader in the region,
The main source of crisis of imperialism is not the crisis of overproduction as advocated by Marxists, it is a factor, but it is the fact that they have produced more industrial products than people available to buy them that is main reason for the ongoing crisis of white imperialism. The crisis comes from the fact that colonized peoples have been gaining strength in pushing back white imperialism, which ability to maintain the rest of the world is being challenged in places like Iraq. The crisis of imperialism is its impossibility to secure its future at the expense of the non white people of the world. Imperialism has lost any dynamic character.
US governments leading the aggression on the rest of the world to solve the imperialist crisis
Infested with crisis that is threatening its existence, the US imperialism, has openly stated since it is the only super power, it intends to remain the only one and will carry a preemptive attack against any one who challenges its current leading status. The world aggression led by the US imperialism is concentrated in Iraq, Afghanistan; the US has established hundred of military bases around the world, there are US armed forces in Philippines, in Colombia,; the US is attacking Venezuela, has been attempting to destabilize Cuba for many decades now,; there is an increased US intervention to get resources from Africa; US is involved in the massacre in Rwanda and Congo, Ivory Coast ; US is building military installations throughout Africa in its efforts to secure access to Oil and other form of energy. It and aggression to re-impose direct white US control on the rest of colonized people, it is also a vain attempt to convince us that it is futile to fight and resist white power.
The US wars of aggression objective are to resist the national aspiration of all colonized peoples. North Korea is not being attacked by the US, it is not the fear of nuclear energy, but because last time the US did it, it has to deal with China.
Europe was feudal, barbaric and despotic when we met them.
European intervention disrupted our on going process of national consolidation. We were free and we had plenty of resources for ourselves when we met white people in the 15th Century. The indigenous of Americas were free until they met white people. The concept of Europe and the white man did not exist until in the 17th century. The vast majority of white people was serfs, and was tied to the land that was owned by the aristocracy. They found freedom in the process of attacking Africa, Americas etc…Europe unity and identity was built at our expense through brigandage, piracy, slavery. They stole entire whole continents of Australia, Americas. In the same process, they destroyed magnificent civilizations that were there such as the ones in Mexico with pyramids and temples… If Europe was a place of freedom and liberty, why did they run out of Europe? The vast majority of white people ran out of Europe because it besieged by plagues for hundred years; they left because they were hungry and never experienced freedom nor land ownership. They attacked the rest of the world with vengeance.
Capitalism is killing us every where
Capitalism was not born in Manchester, it was born as a world system, it was born out enslavement of our people, it was born out of the rape of Africa, and Americas…Capitalism is what is killing us in Uganda, Rwanda, Haiti, and Zimbabwe. It has no redeeming quality, to get rid of it, we must mobilize the masses of African people every where on earth where we have been dispersed to. Capitalism requires a private ownership and social production. How can one individual own the means of production that give life to whole communities? How one individual own can what has been produced socially or collectively?
A capitalist is the one who owns the and control the means of productions. They are the ones who appropriate for themselves the values created by the workers
African Socialist international is the only solution for all masses of black people<
African petty bourgeois today, are like the house slaves during slavery, they identify themselves more with white imperialist rulers than with the masses of poor African workers and peasants who are the field negroes of today. If imperialism is destroyed, the African petty bourgeois will also be doomed, this is so because they have the same materials interests with the white capitalist rulers, just as much as the house negroes had the same materials interests with the slave masters. The imperialist capitalist and the African petty bourgeoisie are dying social classes. That is why any element of the African petty bourgeoisie who wants to have a future free of oppression and exploitation must abandon its class interest and join the African working class, which is fighting for another world: socialism world.
A socialist fights for the empowerment of the workers, who are the creators of value, which is collectively created. Socialism is a world with no exploitation and oppression of workers, where people live and work socially.
We are calling on Africans workers to step forward, we can’t be worst than Mobutu, Duvalier, Museveni etc…we will have to build our own fighting capacity for ourselves and own confidence. All major struggles for liberation that took places in Africa were fought by poor peasants but led by the African petty bourgeoisie.
We have to loose respect for colonial education. We don’t need approval of the UN, US or UK authorities for our own struggle for national liberation. We have to build our own advanced detachment in the form of the African Socialist International.
We are one people; we are going to be free because Africa is free. we can only have power, because Africa is free. We have to end this false consciousness imposed on us by imperialism that makes us alienated and separated from each other” he is an African, I am a Jamaican, and you are an American “or he is a Baptist and I am a catholic “etc… Tony Blair is not an African, but he has access to all of our resources.
We are calling on all Africans dispersed by white imperialism to join the effort of building the African socialist international, a tool for African workers to fight for a single united and continental Africa. under the leadership of African workers, in alliance with poor peasants.
This in opposition to the African petty bourgeois who want African unity, but without workers power, because they want to be the new rulers, as they see Africa and unity of African people, as a huge market.
We are also opposed to race nationalist who see every thing through the race lenses, and fail to see the Mobutu, Duvalier etc…They do not understand the role of state power that can come at the rescue of any white individual against African people. The state power that can work for Africans must be an African worker state, because the African petty bourgeois state works for white power. We are fighting for a state power. Race cultural nationalists do not understand that.
READING OF THE ASI MAIN DOCUMENT
ollowed by the reading of the main resolution document, by comrades Pat Lumumba and Sateesh, wrapped with a thorough discussion to deepen the understanding and unity of the participants with the document. This document allowed s everyone to say on which side they stand. It constitutes a line drawn on the sand.Every African progressive stand is measured with their unity or disunity with the main document. This document speaks to all African people around the world who wants to see united Africa, a free and dignified African people on this planet. It is a document translated in several languages. We are calling on any one with language skills, to translate this document so that most of African people can access and read it, and decide on their unity with this historical process of building the ASI.
REVOLUTIONARY MUSIC IS CENTRE STAGE
Friday night was enlightened with the explosive sound of revolutionary lyrics of the mighty Uhuru band and Bombai duo who touched every one with their song”we do not need an explanation, all we need is reparations”. /ry politics into music that lifted up every one who attended. They sang hip hop, rap, reggae, and soul etc…to convey the revolutionary message of the necessity of struggle of the African working class for power. This was the difference between Uhuru artists and other exciting artists who took on stage at Tudor Lodge Venue. The dictum that only valid in the hands and heads of African people is the revolutionary culture that calls on African people to resist fight for black power over our own lives and African.GARVEY BUILD THE LARGEST INTERNATIONALIST ORGANISATION IN THE WORLD.
Saturday and Sunday, were heightened by intense political struggles, led by Chairman Omali Yeshitela. Members of the African Peoples socialist Party rose to the occasion, as they challenged every manifestation of ideological opportunism within our liberation movement. We had workshops on the national question, African internationalism and panafricanism, and the role of the state. Reports from representative of Mauritania, Angola, Ghana, Congo, Britain, US, Virginia Islands were discussed and discussed . Throughout the conference, we could clearly see that the outdated, inadequate and inconsistent theories used by the African petty bourgeois forces to obscure the class question in African community were exposed The battle of ideas led by the African people Socialist party to end parasitic capitalism is being won.The historical attack on Garvey by Dubois was magnificently exposed. Garvey built the largest international organisation of its time , larger than the third communist international.
Although he never referred to himself nor to its movement as a communist movement, Garvey’s organization was based amongst the impoverished African working class, dispersed around the world. He was an organisation with one centre, one philosophy and one program, UNIA was organizing Africans everywhere on planet with no respect to colonial borders imposed on us. Garvey understood better than anyone, that our struggle was a struggle for national liberation, not just a struggle for workers rights. Our struggle was a necessary struggle for African self determination at the exclusion of any other power. He brilliantly fought the North American communists of the Communist Party of USA, who wanted to reduce our struggle to a struggle that simply serves to facilitate the agenda of the white working class against the white imperialist bourgeoisie fighting over our resources. The communist party of USA never had more than 50 African members during Garvey ‘s times.
With the slogan Africa for Africans those at home and abroad, Garvey clearly understood that Africa is the home of all African people and the ultimate of goal of our struggle must be the liberation of Africa. This was in opposition to the concept of the South belt with five states in U.S.
The “negro world”, the newspaper of the UNIA was practically the unofficial newspaper of the Sandinista movement in Nicaragua. Following the triumph of the Russian revolution, Garvey sent solidarity messages to Lenin and Trotsky in support of the Russian revolution. Ho chi Minh, the leader of the Viet Namese people was a regular of Garvey’s meetings in New York. Garvey’s movement was in solidarity with all struggles of oppressed peoples around the world.. To the success of Garvey’s UNIA with a membership of over 6000 000 Africans around the world , enjoying the support of at least 11 millions Africans worldwide.
In opposition to Garvey, Dubois with his NAACP, (that Garvey mocked as the National Association for the Advancement of Certain People) supported by white imperialism, organized the first Panafricanism conference in Paris. Dubois worked in association with Blaise Diagne, from Senegal. Diagne, was an agent of French imperialism. He was responsible for recruiting Africans from West Africa to fight for France in the First World War between imperialists gangsters. Hence, with the support of white imperialism, Dubois attacked Garvey’s movement. Dubois advocated a concept of talented ten per cent, an early version of articulation of neocolonialism, which he uses to ask the imperialist rulers to put the tenth of African population, the educated and smaller fraction of the African petty bourgeoisie, which believes that their colonial education made them natural rulers of the African people in U.S.
PANAFRICANISM CONCEPT LIQUIDATES CLASS STRUGGLE AND DISARMES THE BEST OF OUR LEADERS AGAINST THE ATTACKS FROM OUR ENEMIES OF THE AFRICAN PETTY BOURGEOISIE AND IMPERIALISM ITSELF
In the absence of Garvey and his million member’s movement, the influence of Dubois grew.In 1945 , Dubois, Padmore, Nkrumah and others, in Manchester, England, organized the fifth Panafricanist Conference, which was attended by African intellectuals, members of the African labour force. The strategies of Dubois of non violent and pacifist struggles, parliamentary seizure of political power, and the anti communism of Padmore had a lasting impact on those who played a leading role in struggle for African independence. Being Panafricanist means you can be anything you want to be. Panafricanism is just a concept not a theory; it is an open door for opportunism that only serves to liquidate the class question within the African nation. the best of panafricanist leader Kwame Nkrumah, who organized an all African people conference in december1958 had a tremendous influence on Sobukwe from occupied South Africa and Lumumba from Congo, who copied and implemented strategies of non violent and pacifism they learned from Nkrumah. Sobukwe who lead a non violent struggle against the illegitimate apartheid regime, was arrested during the infamous Sharpeville March massacre, where over 60 people were killed d by the settler police. Sobukwe was locked up for many years, was released because the white settlers rulers knew he was dying , which happened in 1978.. Lumumba was murdered in 1961, with the participation of key members of his own organisation and of most of the Africa petty bourgeoisie in the Congo. Nkrumah himself was overthrown in 1966, spent most his years in exile alone as his friends of the African petty bourgeoisie abandoned him after the loss of power. These three giants of the African liberation movement: Nkrumah, Lumumba and Sobukwe got killed because panafricanist never built a type of organisation that recognizes the necessity to fight and defeat the African petty bourgeoisie and white imperialism itself as a precondition to our freedom.
The unstoppable rise of African internationalism in the war of ideas that have erupted in the world
African internationalism developed by Chairman Omali Yeshitela is an ever growing theory, with a world view, it is a view of the slave in era of imperialism in crisis. It is a theory that explains the world as it is really is, it speaks to our people about our despicable living conditions, as experienced by the masses of oppressed Africans and other peoples. It reveals the truth in a society based on class and class struggle. It is a philosophy that has no interest in hiding the truth, it mobilizes African people to understand the world as it is, organize into a world wide organisation , led by the African working class in alliance with poor peasantry to fight against our oppressors in any form. Certain African people talk about African unity, but refuse to recognize the class question do so because they have an interest in continuation of the exploitation of the African people and Africa, who they see as a market with one billion people. It is a theory born out of a struggle to defeat the world view of our white oppressors that requires our enslavement and the falsification of the truth in order to keep us enslaved. African internationalism openly states that it is on the side of the African working and poor peasantry, it is against the African petty bourgeoisie and white imperialism power it wants to built a united socialist states of Africa. It openly advocates that the future of all African people is Africa, free from white imperialist domination. It is a philosophy that articulates the never ending bond between Africa and all its children dispersed around the world by imperialist and the necessity to unite all of our struggles to end white power domination once for all.