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<h2>Get up stand up: Youths in the age of revolution</h2>
<h4>Horace G. Campbell</h4>
<h4>2013-06-20, Issue <a href="http://www.pambazuka.org/en/issue/635">635</a></h4>
<h4><a href="http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87928">http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/87928</a></h4>
This week, as Pambazuka News celebrates the youth of Africa at the same
moment that we remember the life and work of Walter Rodney, we seek the
inspiration of Rodney and other freedom fighters as we stand up to be
counted in the struggles for emancipation and transformation. Drawing
from the lyrics of a prophet of emancipation Bob Marley, my message to
the youths of Africa today is: stand up, get up! Stand up for your
rights. Don’t give up the fight!<br>
<p>When the youths of Tahrir Square were chanting that "the people want
to bring down the regime," something had already changed and the world
was not anymore the same. It was the outset of a historic shift of
human ideational system: ordinary people can make a huge change. This
idea of the capabilities of ordinary people slipped through live video
footage, and broke in the minds of people all over the world. One
writer who had understood the historic importance of revolutionary
moments stated that the Egyptian Revolution would change the world.
And, two years on, we are still in the embryonic stages of this
revolutionary process. <br>
<br>
This African Awakening from North Africa, which had started from
Tunisia, has inspired other insurrections – and most recently the
youths of Turkey have impeded all of the planning of Israel, Qatar,
Saudi Arabia and the conservative elements within the imperial centers.
Brazilian Youths are also registering their opposition to
neo-liberalism as the organized and unorganized forces take to the
streets to stand up for social justice. Youths from all corners of the
planet are standing up for their rights and defying the planners who
want to turn them into robotic and mindless consumers. In this process,
the youths are divided between the children of the looters and the
children of the sufferers. This divide on social lines is visible in
the malls and public spaces where the children of the rich parade their
consumerism. While the poor yearn for proper public transportation, the
children of the rich drive by in their flashy cars. This crude
consumerism of the 1 per cent of the youth can be distinguished from
the majority of youths who are struggling for a decent life. The more
the youths stand up, the more effective the efforts to disarm elements
who want to divide, confuse and demobilize agents of transformation. <br>
<br>
We are in a revolutionary moment, and as in every revolutionary moment,
the whip of counter-revolution rears its head. But it is the
self-organization and self-mobilization of the youths that have so far
confounded the forward planners and militarists who want to derail the
people-centered objectives of the moment. In Libya, the
counter-revolutionary forces intervened and established a base for
future intervention against the youths in Egypt, when the revolution
matures. These plans which include arming youths to kill other youths
in places such as Nigeria, Somalia and the Congo are being unmasked as
the complicity of the imperial forces in terrorism is being exposed and
there are now deep divisions between all the centers of imperial power.
<br>
<br>
EMANCIPATE YOURSELVES FROM MENTAL SLAVERY<br>
<br>
As the real energy of Africa emerges out of the ashes of the current
capitalist depression, the financial planners for international
predators sharpen the planning to capture the minds of the youths.
These planners seek to politicize regionalism, religion, ethnic
differences, sexual differences and other contradictions among the
people. The imperialist ideology of individualism and greed is today
compounded by four other ideological deformities: (a) male chauvinism,
(b) religious intolerance, (c) ethnic hatred and (d) fetishism,
especially commodity fetishism. These deformities corrupt some of the
youth and compound the physical and mental illnesses in our societies.
Standing up for complete emancipation requires efforts to break loose
from these social deformities. We cannot separate the discussion of
these illnesses from the question of imperialism. This is a delicate
issue – for while it is not possible to blame all illnesses in Africa
on imperialism, it is also necessary to bring to the attention of the
youths the reality of imperialist plunder and destruction. The term
imperialism is no longer in use since it is now more fashionable to
refer to ‘international partners’ and ‘donors’. However, the terms that
we use must not disarm us and prevent us from teaching the youths.<br>
<br>
As we celebrate the youths, there will be immediate recognition of the
sacrifices of the youths of Soweto who set in motion the mass
democratic struggles against apartheid. The name Hector Peterson is now
remembered by many across the globe to commemorate the bravery of the
13-year-old who had joined with others to oppose the apartheid
imposition of the Afrikaans language and culture. These youths wanted
total emancipation and their sacrifices from June 16, 1976 paved the
way for the end of apartheid. Today, the vanguardists of South Africa
seek to control the memory of the youths because they fear the
revolutionary spirit of the youths. Violators of women and corrupt
leaders emerge from the ranks of those who seek to hijack the
revolutionary traditions of the youth as they enrich themselves. The
current leaders of South Africa who have been willing and able to shoot
down mine workers do not want the majority of the youths in Africa to
remember the inspiration of the youths of Soweto 1976. These youths of
South Africa inspired a generation of young people right up to the
youths of Tahrir square. <br>
<br>
At revolutionary moments – such as this one – the old ideas, old
forces, and old modus operandi can no longer hold together all the
centers of domination and oppression. At such moments, the planning for
divisiveness and confusion comes up against a greater thrust, that of
youths in other parts of the world who come forward to expose imperial
planning for surveillance and mind control.<br>
<br>
The recent revelations by Edward Snowden, the former CIA information
technology employee and contractor for the National Security Agency
(NSA), has exposed the massive operations of the US military and
intelligence against all peoples of the world. Snowden revealed the
fact that the US government has gathered, on a permanent basis, data
from everyone: “You simply have to eventually fall under suspicion from
somebody, even by a wrong call. And then they can use this system to go
back in time and scrutinize every decision you’ve ever made, every
friend you’ve ever discussed something with.”<br>
<br>
The reality was that these capabilities were not just used inside the
United States. With the information it assembled, the US government can
readily construct a detailed social and political profile of
individuals near and far. According to the “Boundless Informant”
data-mining tool, some 97 billion pieces of intelligence were gathered
worldwide from one NSA spying program in March 2013 alone. In addition
to the 3 billion pieces of intelligence from within the US, there were
14 billion from Iran, 13.5 billion from Pakistan, 12.7 billion from
Jordan, 7.6 billion from Egypt, 6.3 billion from India, and 3 billion
from Europe. It is now also known that “Kenya is the most watched
African country on the US spy network.” [1]<br>
<br>
This information is coming one year after an American with links to the
military and intelligence forces, under the guise of a humanitarian
agency, produced the YouTube video Kony 2012. [2] This
pseudo-cum-militaristic humanitarianism gives a clear indication of the
level of sophistication and subtlety behind the planning against the
people that want to mobilize for genuine transformation of their
society, especially the youths. Having failed to provide direct
military assistance to the beleaguered Yoweri Museveni government
through the mobilization of youth internationally, the US Senate this
week authorized the expenditure of US $90m to provide logistical
support to the national military forces of Uganda to mitigate or
eliminate the threat posed by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). <br>
<br>
The US militarists had to find another way to provide support for the
Museveni government at a moment when the military command structure is
torn asunder because some Generals are opposed to the creation of a
monarchy in Uganda. Every effort to confuse and dominate the new
generation comes up against new forces of strength. In eastern Africa,
the forces of division are exposed as people yearn for peace and
democratic participation. <br>
<br>
After the youths of the Occupy Wall Street registered their opposition
to the 1 percent and created the clarity that society must organize for
the 99 percent, the purveyors of neo-liberal capitalism continue to use
the corporate media as a weapon against the minds of the young. Added
to the mainstream media are those mindless violent video games produced
by the military-information-entertainment complex, which seem to
distract and demobilize the minds of young people away from reality
into a virtual world of militarism where killing and violence are
supposed to be normal.<br>
<br>
Yet, as the gaming industry rolls out new products (as they did last
week), the youths who are in the majority in Africa, Asia and Latin
America are searching for new forms of intervention to break the
monopoly of the media. As they come out with new ideas, we must
continue to urge that the youths revert to Bob Marley and all of the
prophets of liberation to seek inspiration and to grow from one level
of consciousness to the next.<br>
<br>
Young people are being inspired by the idea of emancipation from mental
slavery. The idea of fundamental change and the unification of the
working class for a better society are still percolating all over
Africa (and the world), countering and challenging hegemonic ideas.
These were the ideas that Africa’s freedom fighters such as Kwame
Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, and Walter Rodney stood for. <br>
<br>
LUMUMBA, FANON, WALTER RODNEY AND THE YOUTHS<br>
<br>
Ideas are not material objects that are vulnerable to physical
destruction. Despite efforts by western hegemons and their
collaborators to discredit the revolutionary Pan African ideas, these
ideas – emancipation, dignity, unity, and rights for ordinary people –
survived and are being carried on by the youths who are innovating new
ways to “stand up, get up, don’t give up the fight,” in the defense of
these ideas until they become reality.<br>
<br>
Walter Rodney had written extensively about colonialism, war and
revolution. His book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, continues to
inspire millions all around the world. Walter Rodney, the Pan African
historian, was assassinated on June 13, 1980. Those who assassinated
him physically are now seeking to assassinate him intellectually. Even
those who write books about Rodney and quote from him seek his ideas
for academic positions and seek to divorce the work of Walter Rodney
from active revolutionary change. This has been the case in the home of
Walter Rodney, Guyana, where the ethnic and racial chauvinists have now
sought to drive a wedge between youths of African and Indian descent.
Even within the Global Pan African movement there are those who want to
drive a wedge between youths of Tunisia and youths of Mali (between
Arabs and Africans). These elements promote Pan Africanism on the basis
of politics of exclusion. Walter Rodney had opposed racial chauvinists
and he opposed those Pan Africanists who wanted to divide Africa using
the Sahara or religious differences to support imperial divisions.
Rodney had clarified the importance of the youth for the African
Revolution. In writing about C.L.R James, Rodney had stated that “Most
youth in Africa will have heard the axiom that each generation rewrites
its own history. It does so not merely for giving different answers to
the same questions but by posing entirely different questions based on
the stage of development that a particular society has reached. Certain
scholars will be among the first to raise the new and meaningful issues
because of their sensitivity and connection with the most dynamic group
in society. Thus when African peoples were mounting the struggle for
political independence and as they continued that struggle through
military means in Southern Africa and political economic means
elsewhere, they automatically became interested in recalling previous
resistance.” <br>
<br>
Rodney would be dismayed today that many youths in Africa have not
heard of Hector Peterson and the hundreds of thousands of youths who
fought colonialism and apartheid. Silencing the history of the true
heroes and heroines of the freedom struggle falls within the same
category as the assassination of the freedom fighters of Africa. The
assassination of Walter Rodney (like that of other Pan Africanists like
Patrice Lumumba) as well as the overthrow of Pan African visionaries
like Kwame Nkrumah, was meant to blunt the spirit of freedom, but
certain ideas are indestructible. <br>
<br>
We urge African youths to call on all previous resistance as they seek
to develop a common ground to enrich the revolutionary processes that
are now erupting.<br>
<br>
Patrice Lumumba had understood the need for African liberation. He had
written, “United as the children of one family, we shall defend the
honor and freedom of Africa.” These were the words of a Pan Africanist
who also understood the centrality of the Congo to the African
Revolution. Lumumba was silenced. But his words echo on and are
reinforced in the mission for the African Revolution – from generation
to generation. <br>
<br>
It was Frantz Fanon who argued that “every generation must, out of
relative obscurity, discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.”
Fanon, a medical doctor, internationalist and freedom fighter from the
Caribbean island of Martinique was calling on the generation of the
period of anti-colonialism to fulfill its mission in bringing an end to
overt colonial domination. The generation of youths after 1945 took up
the task of confronting colonial rule. From every part of the continent
there were organized and spontaneous acts of opposition to colonial
racism, exploitation and plunder. <br>
<br>
One of the tasks of the freedom movement after 1945 was to liberate all
Africans from colonial rule. This task is still incomplete (Western
Sahara, Mayotte, Cayenne, Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, Martinique and over
50 other colonies) and we have to remind ourselves that as long as one
part of the world remains under colonial rule, others parts of the
world will be threatened by the same colonial forces. It can now be
said that despite the sacrifices of the youth in Africa manifest in the
major struggles to eradicate colonialism and apartheid, the tasks of
ending violation and exploitation is still incomplete. Youth and their
role in previous revolutionary struggles in Africa must be studied to
inspire those who were too young to be part of the great struggle to
defeat apartheid. <br>
<br>
AFRICAN YOUTHS AND EMANCIPATION IN THE ERA OF NGOS AND DATA MINING <br>
<br>
What are the new questions for the 21st century? There are many
contemporary questions regarding emancipation, transformation, unity,
and rights for which today’s youths have to seek answers, taking
inspirations from the struggles of previous generations. Numerous
imperial organizations sponsored by the friends and enemies of Africa
and enemies of the youth, under the guise of the so called
international non-governmental organizations, seek to cream off the
brightest of the youths of Africa and employ them as consultants to
support the data mining that is going on at the imperial centers. Some
of these international NGOs which operate under the pretext of
providing education, health, and social welfare services, are seeking
to collect all forms of intelligence information. And as they failed in
Egypt, so imperialism has redoubled its efforts to invest in divisive
formations in all parts of the world. African youths must become more
conscious of these ploys and become even more active in sites where
there are efforts to unearth the activities of looters who use tax
havens and offshore companies/accounts to rob the society of money that
could be used for reconstruction, health, education, and environmental
repair. <br>
<br>
Wangari Maathai left a message for the youths. This message is that the
youths must replenish the earth and must save the planet. This message
joins with the message and ideas of the indigenous peoples of Latin
America and Asia. These peoples are pointing to the youths of the world
the folly of the ideas of dominion over nature. We have seen that
nature will take its revenge. Global warming is real and there must be
system change in order to reverse global warming. Instinctively, people
everywhere are grasping this basic fact. The more people grasp these
facts, the more imperialism redoubles efforts to sabotage global
initiatives from the environmental justice forces.<br>
<br>
The youths must demand that they are not mobilized for war. The
international nonprofit and non-governmental organization learnt in
Latin America that the more there are international instruments to
protect the rights of the youth, the more it is necessary to create
organizations that will divert the energies of the youth away from
direct action to defend their interests. This became very clear at the
youth conference prior to the World Conference against Racism (WCAR) in
Durban. <br>
<br>
It was the clarity of this moment of reparative justice and the global
call for reparations that pressured some so called leaders in Africa to
come up with NEPAD. Ten years after NEPAD and the New Africa
Initiative, the people are now returning to the ideas that came out of
Durban 2001. Our brothers and sisters from Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela
and other parts of the Global African Family are reminding us that
there can be no business as usual until there are clear apologies for
slavery.<br>
<br>
Only recently the British government for the first time acknowledged
that crimes were committed in Kenya by British imperial forces. The
same relentless campaign that had been carried out by the surviving
members of the Land and Freedom Army (of Kenya) must be carried out by
the Global Movement for Reparations for the slave trade and slavery. <br>
<br>
The issue of reparations is urgent in identifying those who carried out
crimes. This includes the identification of the social forces in Africa
that facilitated these crimes of enslavement. Africa never recovered
from the criminal destruction that had been unleashed during the warren
to procure enslaved beings. It was this destruction that paved the way
for the partitioning of Africa. The fact that a society such as Belgium
murdered over ten million Africans after the partitioning of Africa
should be general knowledge. <br>
<br>
Today, there are many discussions about the potential of the African
youth. We agree that there is great potential for revolutionary change.
The world is going through a major technological revolution and the
youths can arm themselves with knowledge of previous revolutionary
moments to arm themselves with the ideas and forms of political
organization that can make a decisive difference in this period. Kenyan
youths have shown remarkable creativity with social media and have
pioneered new products such as M-Pesa and Ushaidi. Youths in that
society are holding the line against those who want to manipulate
ethnic differences so that youths kill each other. It is in Nigeria
where the backward elements have mobilized disaffected youths in the
so-called Boko Haram to carry out mindless violence. Other youths in
that large and populous country seek new ways of mobilizing and are
holding the line against absolute barbarism of the corrupt elements<br>
<br>
It is important to locate peace, reparations, and reconstruction as a
process that breaks old patriarchal ideas and attitudes. The
reformulation of peace and the harnessing of the creative energies of
the youth is emerging in a situation where it is becoming clear that
peace cannot be an imported commodity based on the landing of troops
from international peacekeepers. The experience of the role of the
United Nations from the assassination of Patrice Lumumba down to the
recent intervention in Libya demonstrated the reality that the concept
of peace that is widely circulated (and associated with the US Africa
Command) does not value Africans or the self-determination of African
societies. Most of the peace agreements that have been made in Africa
have been platforms for more war and violence. It is this violent
history of war as peace that is forging the conceptual break with
realist principles of politics and the view that might is right.<br>
<br>
An alternative vision of peace that brings back the Pan African
principle that, “the African is responsible for the wellbeing of his
brother and sister and that every African should carry this
responsibility” should be enshrined in the streets and villages all
over Africa. The Constitutive Act of the Union seeks to move from the
idea of “noninterference in the internal affairs of states” to one that
spells out the necessity to prevent genocide, crimes against humanity
and unconstitutional military interventions. This change that was
manifest in the call for non-recognition of governments that came to
power by military coups (after 1999) was a significant step in the
demilitarization of Africa. African women from the grassroots who have
been campaigning for peace have been the strongest and most resilient
forces championing new concepts of politics, citizenship and peace. The
implicit ideal that is now on the agenda is the philosophy that defends
human life and defends the quality of the lives of the workers and
ordinary people. <br>
<br>
As the African youths move to defend this philosophy and the ideas that
Pan Africanists such as Walter Rodney stood for, it is my wish that
they draw on the inspirations and traditions of the previous
generations. African Youths will move from strength to strength, and as
they move they will be singing the words of Bob Marley. Get up stand
up, stand up for your rights/ don’t give up the fight.<br>
<br>
And May Walter Rodney and his spirit live on among the revolutionary
youths of Africa.<br>
<br>
* Horace Campbell is Professor of African American Studies and
Political Science at Syracuse University. He is also a Special invited
Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He is the author of the
book, ‘Global NATO and the catastrophic failure in Libya: Lessons for
Africa in the Forging of African Unity published by Monthly Review
Press. <a href="http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb4123/">http://monthlyreview.org/press/books/pb4123/</a>
The book is distributed in the UK and in Africa by Pambazuka Press.<br>
<br>
END NOTES<br>
<br>
1. “Kenya is The Most Watched African Country on The US Spy Network”
AllAfrica.com, June 11, 2013. <a
href="http://allafrica.com/view/resource/main/main/id/00061936.html">http://allafrica.com/view/resource/main/main/id/00061936.html</a>
<br>
2. See Horace Campbell, “Kony2012: militarization and disinformation
blowback,” Pambazuka News, March 22, 2012. <a
href="http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80989">http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/80989</a></p>
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