Neo-colonialism in Africa - from 1966 to 2009!!

February 24th, 2009 marks the 43rd commemoration of the barbaric and illegal overthrow of the Convention People's Party (CPP) in Ghana, West Africa. The CPP and its popular president; Kwame Nkrumah, were overthrown on 2/24/1966 by the self proclaimed "National Liberation Council (NLC)."

On March 6, 1957, no one in the CPP government could imagine that the euphoria that swept Ghana, Africa, and all of the technologically underdeveloped world would be muted a scant 9 years later. 3/6/57 signaled Ghana's independence from Britain. Newly elected Prime Minister Nkrumah proudly announced during independence ceremonies that Ghana's independence was meaningless without Africa's complete political and economic independence. From that moment forward, Nkrumah worked to fulfill that promise. His commitment to Pan-Africanism is clearly illustrated by his actions while president of Ghana. His government trained many revolutionaries who would come to play important roles in Africa's development such as cadre from the Zimbabwe African National Union, including Robert Mugabe. Ghana played a key role, albet somewhat manipulated in hindsight, in attempting to defuse the tragic events during the imperialist takeover of the Congo in 1961, and Ghana's efforts to assist other newly independent countries such as Guinea and Mali deserve recognition.

Nkrumah invited Africans from the Caribbean and North America such as George Padmore, W.E.B and Shirley Graham Dubois, Alphahus Hunton, Julian Mayfield, and others to play central roles in the Accra government. And, while the CPP was in power, Ghana embarked upon strategies to improve the infrastructure of the country in the areas of technological development, improvement of roads, and education that have not been equaled up to present day.

Of course, a fair question is if the CPP and Nkrumah were such a positive force in Ghana, how was it possible for them to be so easily overthrown? The answer is in the diabolical conniving of imperialism. Colonialism made Africa poor and Ghana is no exception. One thing the imperialists understand is that since revolutions take time to reverse the oppression trends of an exploitative regime, revolution depends upon its ability to win the hearts and minds of the people to support the revolution while the transformation takes place. So, if imperialism can do anything to interfere with the revolution's efforts to maintain the people's support, imperialism will do it and these people think nothing of lying, manipulating, creating sabotage, and committing outright murder to achieve those destabilization efforts. This is exactly what happened in Ghana. Imperialism aided the so-called NLC by assisting in setting up radio stations and other propaganda that promoted the backward and untrue concepts that the CPP and Nkrumah were stashing Ghanian currency away in Swiss banks. The fact that there was a very low level of ideological development among the cadre in the CPP, and in fact, massive corruption did exist (so much so that this is probably one of the reasons Nkrumah had so many Africans born outside of Ghana as his government inner circle), did much to buoy the claims of the imperialist puppets of the NLC. Since that low level of ideological development existed in Ghanian society as a whole, many people didn't understand why so many of Ghana's resources had to go to liberation movements and governments outside Ghana. Imperialism of course did everything it could to highlight this fact and that many of Ghana's citizens had very little while resources were being diverted to assist "communist" efforts in other countries.

Ironically, in Janurary of 1965, Ghanian intelligence sources advised the visiting Malcolm X that their sources had confirmed that the U.S. government had plans to assist in the murder of Malcolm when he returned to the U.S. Of course the Ghanian sources were correct, but they were unfortunately unable to create a storng enough intelligence effort to derail their own demise one short year later.

The NLC won enough support through its propaganda efforts and empty promises to successfully overthrow Nkrumah's government while Nkrumah was attempting to visit Southeast Asia to lend his efforts to helping end the war there. Now that 40+ years have passed we can survey the facts of this illegal overthrow. Fact one is the claim that Nkrumah had money stashed away has been proven to be bogus. In fact, its ironic that Nkrumah died with practically nothing while receiving medical assistance in Romania in 1972. Fact two is that the U.S. central intelligence agency played a pivotal role in assisting in the overthrow of Nkrumah's government. Fact three is that it was indeed the members of the so-called NLC, which was deposed of by the Ghanian military just a few short years later, that had been stashing money away in European banks.

The legacy of Nkrumah and the CPP is clearly outlined in Nkrumah's classic books "Class Struggle in Africa" and "The Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare." After the overthrow, Nkrumah was warmly received in the unprecedented effort by the Guinean people to make him president of Guinea. Nkrumah refused that distinction and was thus made co-president by equally Pan-Africanist Sekou Ture of Guinea. From 1966 until his death in 1972, Nkrumah spent time in Guinea writing about what he had learned while being in Ghana and since being deposed as that country's leader. He realized that although colonialism had left Africa, neo-colonialism, or the replacement of the European masters by trained African slave puppets (listen you Obama people) had become the system in which Africa would continue to be ruled by European capitalist interests. This is still the method that is utilized in Africa today. All of the conflicts in Africa; from the Eritrean/Ethiopian/Somalian conflict, to Darfur/Sudan, to Central Africa, etc., can be directly traced to the insidious efforts of neo-colonialism.

When you look at today's conflicts in Africa, if you study the legacy of Nkrumah and the CPP, his words warning us about neo-colonialism ring louder today than they did in 1968!

Remembering Malcolm X? Join an Organization working for justice!

February is the month to commemorate the martyrdom of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz; better known as Malcolm X. On February 21, 1965, at approximately 1:30pm at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York, Malcolm was gunned down by men who were more than likely affiliated with the Newark, New Jersey Mosque of the Nation of Islam. We know that the FBI had informants at the very top level of the Nation of Islam. We know that these informants made it a priority to sabotage Malcolm's relationship with the NOI, isolate Malcolm, and set him up to be murdered. So, it may be accurate to say these men were affiliated with the NOI, but we know it was the U.S. government that manipulated and engineered the murder of brother Malcolm. Or, as Amiri Baraka puts it "Black men may have fired the guns, but they didn't buy the bullets."

So, 44 years after Malcolm's murder where do we place Malcolm? Is he a speech snipet sayhing "By any means necesary" over and over? Is he a tee shirt? Is he a sample on a rap record? For the younger generations, is he simply Denzil Washington's portrayal of him? Or, is he someone the youth will increasingly not know at all? Well, there are many of us who know who Malcolm was. He was a principled man who was dedicated to fighting for justice. He was a soldier who could not be compromised. His ability to take the complex nature of the capitalist/imperialism system and break down its contradictions in a common everyday humorous fashion that has influenced all those who emerged after him like Kwame Ture (Stokley Carmichael), Jamil Al Amin (H Rap Brown), Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Maulana Karenga, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, Kathleen Cleaver, Bob Marley, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Minister Khallid Abdul Muhammad, Minister Ava Muhammad (and practically every minister in the NOI), and thousands of soldiers for justice of each gender and every nationality. His ability to analyze the cause of urban rebellions, international imperialism in Vietnam, Cuba, Africa, and elsewhere, and the African right to self determination is still studied by revolutionaries today.

Kwame Ture used to say that the best way to honor someone like Malcolm was to continue his work. This approach makes sense. If you have a relationship with someone and the both of you say you love each other, if your significant other only tells you they love you with no action to back that up, after a short while, you will be done with that person. This is a universal aspect of life. You can't say you love Malcolm, or anyone who struggled or struggles for justice, if you aren't doing anything to assist that work. You can't solve the problem as an individual because you will die and then what becomes of your contribution? The only way the problem can be solved is through mass organization. So, if you truly respect Malcolm, the only way to properly honor his memory is to join some organization fighting for justice and work to make that organization a positive force for social change. You can't do this by being the "Malcolm X of the police force" as an African pig once told me. That's absurd. We can't make Malcolm what we want him to be. He was a soldier for justice against imperialism. You can't be that while being an armed enforcer for imperialism? Join an organization working for justice. Do it today and don't stop until you die. When we are ready to do that, we will bring Malcolm's vision to reality. Let's get to work!