[News] Mumia: In Defense of Ward Churchill

[News at freedomarchives.org]

IN DEFENSE OF WARD CHURCHILL - HISTORIAN!
============================================
[Col. Writ. 2/10/05] Copyright 2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal

     In every society, more or less coercive measures
     are applied by ruling groups to organize and
     control mass opinion.  This method seems worse
     than some because it constitutes an abuse of reason.
     -- Edward H. Carr, *What is History?* (1961)


     As rabid right-wing talkbirds cackle for the firing of
University of Colorado-based historian, Ward Churchill,
the very controversy echoes an earlier, meaner age;
that of the Cold War period of the '50s, when the state,
through the FBI and various other government agencies,
ran riot over the rights, livelihoods, families and lives of
tens of thousands of people, simply because of their
differing political opinions, or because they were
suspected of being 'communists.'

     Churchill, an ethnic studies professor at UC, knows
a little something about that era.  He was co-author
(with Jim Vander Wall) of the now-classic and
authoritative studies of the now-infamous COINTELPRO,
or *CO*unter*INTEL*ligence *PRO*gram of the FBI
against radical movements:  *Agents of Repression:
The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther
Party and the American Indian Movement* (Cambridge,
Ma.: South End Press, 1988 [2002]); and *The
COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's
Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States*
(Cambridge, Ma.: South End Press, 1990 [2002]).
Both works, together over 900 pages, are exhaustively
footnoted and documented, and provide chilling
insights into how the State used illegal, unconstitutional,
and outright criminal tactics to "neutralize, disrupt", and
indeed destroy social and political movements for
decades!

     Churchill is now under fire for an essay penned shortly
after the events of Sept. 11, 2001, where he reasons that,
to anyone knowledgeable about U.S. foreign affairs, the
attack could hardly have been surprising.  As knowledgeable
as he is about U.S. domestic affairs, he is equally
knowledgeable about foreign affairs.  And he knows,
all too well, that many people in foreign lands have
grievances against the U.S.

     In his 2002 essay, "Some People Push Back: On the
Justice of Roosting Chickens", Churchill recalls the famous
comment by Malcolm X, after the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy:  it was but a case of "chickens coming
home to roost."

     Both Malcolm and Churchill knew something about U.S.
actions abroad, its export of violence abroad, and its
demonstrated hatred of dark peoples the world over.
He recounts how American armies and agents have wreaked
brutal havoc all around the world, killing almost countless
"innocent civilians", in their efforts to insure continued
imperial rule.  For example, he mentions the CIA's Operation
Phoenix, where the U.S. government, the Navy Seals,
Army Special Forces, south Vietnamese Rangers, and
Australian SAS, "neutralized" people named by CIA
snitches as Vietnamese "guerrillas."

     Churchill writes:

        Upwards of 40,000 people -- mostly bystanders, as
        it turns out -- were murdered by Phoenix hit teams
        before the guerrillas, stronger than ever, ran the
        US and its collaborators out of their country
        altogether.  And these are the guys who are gonna
        save the day, if unleashed to do their thing in
        North America? [p. 6]

     Ward Churchill is bitingly critical of the politicians, the
military, and other government agencies who have unleashed
a wave of terror upon people around the world.  He does not
mindlessly genuflect to the dead from the World Trade
Center attacks. He explains, as best he can, that such
unbridled violence abroad, led to violence here.

     Churchill is not a 'safe', or 'guild', historian.  He does
not speak obliquely of 'the vanishing Indian', or the glories
of Manifest Destiny.  He teaches of the madness of
Empire, and from the position of the people on the
periphery, the outskirts of Empire.

     It is not enough for us to merely, dumbly intone that
Churchill has the right to write what he does.  No --
we must do more.

     We must insist that Churchill *is right*.  And no
one, not some rabid talkshow parrots, nor a political whore
like Gov. Bill Owens, has a right to demand what is
wrong.  The Cold War is over (even in Colorado).

     Churchill is right!

Copyright 2005 Mumia Abu-Jamal

[Check out Mumia's latest: *WE WANT FREEDOM:
A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from South
End Press (www.southendpress.org); Ph.
#1-800-533-8478.]
===============================

"When a cause comes along and you know in your bones that it is
just, yet refuse to defend it--at that moment you begin to die.
And I have never seen so many corpses walking around talking about
justice." - Mumia Abu-Jamal

MUMIA'S COLUMNS NEED TO BE PUBLISHED AS BROADLY
AS POSSIBLE TO INSPIRE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT AND
HELP CALL ATTENTION TO HIS CASE.

The campaign to kill Mumia is in full swing and we need you to
**please** contact as many publications and information outlets as
you possibly can to run Mumia's commentaries (on-line and
**especially off-line**)!! The only requirements are that you run
them *unedited*, with every word including copyright information
intact, and send a copy of the publication to Mumia and/or ICFFMAJ.
THANK YOU!!!

Keep updated by reading ACTION ALERTS!!
at www.mumia.org and its links.
========================================

To download Mp3's of Mumia's commentaries visit
www.prisonradio.org or www.fsrn.org
==============================================>

The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!

PLEASE CONTACT:
International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180
E-mail - icffmaj at aol.com
AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES!

Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370

WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!

Submitted by: Sis. Marpessa

Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe at topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj at aol.com!



The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20050309/30b38e4b/attachment.htm>