Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, at a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon in 1980. #Solidarity #Ferguson2Palestine #IndictTheSystem #ShutItDown Ive written before about the long connection and internationalist solidarity between the Black Power movement and the Palestinian liberation movement: The PFLP acknowledges a little-discussed fact—that is to say, that the black liberation movement in the US has deep historical ties to the movement for Palestinian liberation. The organization “salutes the Black liberation movement” and expresses admiration for all that it has learned “from the experiences of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Frederick Douglass, the Black Panthers, Sojourner Truth, and generations of Black revolutionaries who have led the way in struggling for liberation and self-determination.” Yet these ties are not limited to influences. Black Panther and former political prisoner Dhoruba Bin Wahad explains he in fact served as a liaison between the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and Palestine’s UN delegation. An Israeli Black Panther Party was also formed in 1971 by oppressed Mizrahi Jews, in order to protest what a founder referred to as the “exploitative capitalist system” of Israel that preferentially favors Ashkenazi Jews (those of European descent) and treats “the Oriental Jews [as] the working class.” While some nationalists prefer keeping their respective struggles separate from others—sometimes going so far as to criticize other movements for “diverting attention away from” or even “appropriating” their own—the PFLP shows that international solidarity lies at the heart of the movement for Palestinian liberation. It “is critical for all of our communities to expand and deepen our links of struggle and solidarity,” it writes. Instead of conceiving the struggle for Palestinian and black liberation as separate movements, the PFLP speaks of them in the same breath. The struggles for black and indigenous liberation in the United States are “central” to “the struggle against imperialism,” as they are resisting imperialism “in the belly of the beast.” Every victory inside the United States and political achievement by popular movements and liberation struggles is a victory for Palestine and a victory for a world of human liberation. Those who think that the fate of people in the United States lies with the ruling class parties, the Republicans and Democrats, until the end of time, are living in an illusion. So too are those who believe Palestine can find freedom by seeking alliances or guarantees by those who oppress Black people. Black Americans are “leading the world in the struggle” against U.S. imperialism, the PFLP says. And this struggle will only take place “through organization of people, emerging from uprisings and communities rising in anger against injustice.” counterpunch.org/2014/08/29/the-struggles-in-palestine-and-ferguson-are-one/
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 00:09:26 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015