imperialism by any other name
Part 1 of a series on Imperialism, Political Education and International Liberation
Key Terms: Imperialism, Sovereignty/ Self-Determination, Global South, Neo-Colonialism, Violence
“Imperialism is the final stage of capitalism that is reached when the capitalists of a particular country are compelled to economically expand beyond their own borders through military force or other methods of coercion. Imperialism is referred to as the highest stage of capitalism because the capitalist system must either expand or die in its quest to accumulate profits.” - (Fight Imperialism Stand Together, 1975)
“The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.” - (Kwame Nkrumah, 1965)
Throughout this piece, the term Global South is used to nationalize a people existing under a particular set of conditions. These Black & Brown Indigenous Communities is composed of the existing descendants of the peoples who have inhabited a space/territory wholly or partially at a time when persons of a different culture or ethnic origin invaded from other parts of the world through violence and conquest for capitalistic means. - (@agapemvmt & @neigborprogram, 2020)
Self-Determination/[Sovereignty] is freedom. “We want power to determine the destiny of our Black community. We believe that Black people will not be free until we are able to determine our destiny.” - (Black Panther Party, 1966)
The word violence is used throughout this piece to describe physical, emotional, structural, institutional, legal and narrative ways of causing harm - (Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Yazier Henry)
Places:
● Ohlone Land - oakland, ca
● Turtle Island - amerikkka
● Ayiti - haiti
● San Domingo - ayiti + domincan republic
● Palestine
Introduction:
One thing I’m realizing while preparing to write this piece is that educating folks on imperialism is hard. For one thing, typing into the void of the internet leaves little room for intentional analysis, critique and relational learning. Also, imperialism is one of those things that's weaved its way this way so naturally into our everyday lives that it's often times difficult to identify, name/define and, ultimately, deconstruct. Finally, this shit is just dense.
At the same time, there is a liberating nature of storytelling and, for those interested in one day realizing the true freedom of abolition, this piece provides insight into a few modern day stories of imperialism (from Ohlone Land to Ayiti to Palestine) in hopes that these analyses will continue to educate us on building an organized movement towards liberation.
a year in oakland.
i took a long walk up telegraph avenue the other day. a route i’ve grown accustomed to during a full year of working from home and not having gym access. i travelled past the parking spots, boutiques and outdoor dining areas which seemed to spring from the ground in less than a year. i got to the overpass where i first started to build community with my houseless neighbors and couldn’t help but notice city workers (afrikans) putting new paint up on the walls. i immediately thought back to the 2018 displacement of one of west oakland’s largest houseless encampments - my comrade had called me out that day to support the resistance against city officials and pigs physically uprooting folks from their homes. we won that day. today, that encampment no longer exists. i recalled more recent city legislation which called for county officials to begin identifying “high sensitivity” areas which would be “cleaned up” as a precursor to displacing more encampments. so i walked up to my fellow afrikans:
me: “ya’ll know what all is going on here? are they moving people out?”
worker 1: “i don’t know, i’m not with the city, i’m with [city-run/beholden organization]. BART owns that part of the bridge”
me: “o, bet. i was just wondering cause it looks like there’s no one back that way any more so just seeing if folks were being moved”
worker 1: “nah, we’re just cleaning up”
me: “yeah...well, that’s how it starts”
worker 2: “damn...true.”
palestinian parallels.
the more recent acts of violence in shiekh jarrah have continued to shock the world. videos of zionists walking into the homes of indigenous palestinians and claiming ownership have become more and more accessible. the escalation of displacement, bombings, sanctions and brutality have made it clear to many communities of the global south across the world that what is happening in palestine now is inhumane.
my series co-author (laxmi) and i recently found ourselves in a heated discussion about the urgency of the apartheid taking place in palestine - particularly in gaza and the west bank. I found myself struggling to center and uplift the dignity and strategic resistance of Palestinian youth and organizers while simultaneously acknowledging the reality that without a sustained global network of material support adequately resourced to take on the imperial powers of the israel “defense” force and amerikkka that -- similarly to the west oakland encampment -- it would be another land battle lost.*
*original piece included visual of 4 maps of palestine which highlight its shrinking borders from 1918 to 1947 to 1960 to 2017.
thankfully, this is not where this paper ends. i am not a pessimist. i am an abolitionist. palestine will be free. the global south will be free.
defend ayiti at all costs.
i grew up learning of the resistance of the Afrikans in San Domingo. my ancestors. i learned of a people who came together to oust whiteness from their society and establish themselves as the first independent Black republic in the atlantic world. yet still, Ayiti is not free. what is happening in Ayiti is neo-colonialism. Afrikans successfully came together with a primary objective of eradicating white supremacy and in that process, never got around to eradicating the structures of capitalism. being plagued with never-ending violence from amerikkkan and european powers in the form of sanctions, governmental interference, strategic infiltration and propaganda didn’t help.
the haitian revolution is one to be studied in our quest for collective liberation. where did they go wrong? how did this nation go from reclaiming land and experiencing authentic practices of self-determination to being a nation whose everyday governmental ongoings are all puppeteered by amerikkka? after hours on google, i called up one of my elders:
me: who was the president of ayiti when you were growing up?
elder: papa doc.
me: what did you think of him?
elder: things were fine when he was in charge
me: what do you mean by that?
elder: well, ayiti was a good country then. now it’s so dangerous.
me: o, ok. but like, what did papa doc do that made you like him?
elder: everyone went to school.
me: so it was like more of a communist or socialist country? or capitalist?
elder: capitalist. yeah, after baby doc took over things started to go downhill and he toothen there were coup d'état
me: why was there a coup?
elder: o you know, i think the united states did something. that’s always been how it is. a coup every few months.
by now i’ve gone back through a great deal of the history of haitian leaders from toussaint louverture to dessalines to henri christophe/alexander petition to aristide and finally, moise. sharing my learnings from those deep dives would probably require a whole different article but in essence: from the second Afrikans in San Domingo won their independence, european and amerikkkan powers have been in a strategic and intentional battle to prevent Ayiti from achieving complete self-determination and has a pattern of organized violence against socialist leadership. on a larger scale, there has been a long history of propaganda pushed on folks both within and outside of Ayiti to craft a particular image of what is/isn’t “liberation” and “violence” – whose battleground has existed primarily with Ayiti’s government officials as pawns.
in the ongoing land war, i strongly believe - though i may be biased - in the strategic solidarity of all Afrikans in the western world towards the ultimate eradication of all imperialist powers in Ayiti by any means necessary, in order to finally establish a physically independent, sovereign nation for Afrikans in the western world. a sovereign nation with the potential to serve as a major political Afrikan base in the western world - within which to continue building a liberation army and offer refuge for Afrikan freedom fighters from government surveillance and violence as we organize to dismantle imperialism – as was the original vision of Dessalines.
So what does all of this mean? Why do these stories matter?
Across each example, we are witnessing the violence of imperialism: a type of violence which thrives on displacement and land aggression.
Right now, Afrikans in Ohlone Territory are fighting a land war. The same land war that Palestinians have been fighting since the Nakba.* The same land war that indigenous folks on Turtle Island have been fighting for centuries. The same land war that is still being fought on the Continent (Afrika). The same land war that displaced Afrikans have been navigating since europe split up the Continent at the berlin conference. And the list goes on. In fact, it is the same capitalistic-driven land war that Europeans were fighting amongst themselves before the, [then] working class decided to explore and expand their empire [in the name of science].
So then, what exactly are we moving towards? What are we struggling to build?
For most of us who exist as members of the global south, all we have known -- the dominant culture -- has been capitalism. Walter Rodney (1973) refers to several stages of development any given society undergoes:
Communalism: where property was collectively owned, work was done in common, and goods were shared out equally.
Slavery: caused by the extension of domineering elements within the family and by some groups being overwhelmed by others. Slaves did a variety of tasks, but their main job was to produce.
Feudalism: where agriculture remained the principal means of making a livelihood, but the land which was necessary for that purpose was in the hands of the few, and they took the lion’s share of the wealth. The workers on the land were no longer the personal property of the masters, but they were tied to the land of a particular manor or estate.
Capitalism: under which the greatest wealth in the society was produced not in agriculture but by machines – in factories and in mines. Like the preceding phase of feudalism, capitalism was characterised by the concentration in a few hands of ownership of the means of producing wealth and by unequal distribution of the products of human labour. The few who dominated were the bourgeoisie who had originated in the merchants and craftsmen of the feudal epoch, and who rose to be industrialists and financiers. Meanwhile, the workers were declared “legally free” to leave the land and to go in search of employment in capitalist enterprises. Their labour thereby became a commodity – something to be bought and sold.
The next stage of development, Socialism which, in short, refers to a return to communalism which embraces the inventiveness and material “progress” of humanity while maintaining an economic principle of collectivism. In the war to deconstruct imperialism, this is what all members of the global south dedicated to establishing self-determination and sovereignty -- from Ayiti to Palestine -- can be working to create.
How Sway?????
stay tuned for part 2 of this series which will discuss a systematic approach to liberation
which centers political education and international solidarity.
in the meantime, tap in with @agapemvmt for ongoing Political Education.
all love and power to the people.
