Black Agenda Report Editor and Columnist Ajamu Baraka has thoughts on Black Misleadership, faux Human Rights, the Decline of the Empire, White Social Democrats and other issues.
-
What makes the white supremacy so incredibly dangerous is what I call the psychopathology of white supremacy. It is a racialized narcissistic cognitive disorder that centers so-called white people’s and European civilization and renders the afflicted with an inability to perceive objective reality in the same way as others. This affliction is not reducible to the race of so-called whites but can affect all those who have come in contact with the ideological and cultural mechanisms of the Pan-European colonial project.
-
In their zeal to defend the indefensible in Gaza, supporters of Zionism have done what we have not been able to do in decades - educate the public on the colonialist and racist reality of the Zionist framework and movement. Two months ago, most of the publics in the U.S. and Europe were unaware of Zionism or viewed it favorably. Today millions of ordinary people are now aware of Zionism and have rejected it as illegitimate.
Why?
Statements from the mouths of Israeli officials exposed that the dehumanization of Palestinians was a central organizing element of Zionism and the barbaric assault on Gaza revealed that not only was Zionism racist, but it was fascistic as well.
Racism or white supremacist ideology is a core value of colonialism and fascism characterizes the governing structures of value extraction and dispossession in the colonial context. In the colonial context the natives have “no rights that the colonialists are bound to recognize.” It is organized terror that is the modality of the parasitic relationship of coloniality. White supremacy and fascism are fundamentally interconnected materially allowing a ruling European bourgeoisie to plunder the land, labor and resources of the colonized but that relationship is even more deadly in the settler colonial contexts in Israel, the U.S. and Canada, where the physical survival of the colonized is made even more precarious by the desire of the colonist to steal indigenous land and “cleanse” the stolen territories of the peoples that occupied the land. This is the essential relationship of Zionism. As Biden said correctly, he is a Zionist, that is why he is also a fascist.
-
That is why the U.S. Congress, and any other Western institution can pass any resolution or law conflating anti-Zionism with anti-semitism that they want, but the people of the world now understand the connection and understand that Zionism is an oppressive colonial concept that has transformed into fascism.
-
Zionist propagandists are desperate. There are Jewish students across the country participating and sometimes in the leadership of protests against the outrageous crimes in Gaza. But the Israeli fascists are spinning the narrative of Jewish students being intimidated. Well with the tide turning against the justifications for the existence of the state of Israel, it would be understandable that those students still supporting Zionism would feel this shift in public opinion.
-
The Democratic Party is run like a plantation for Black folks. The white neoliberal donors that run that party want Black folks to be seen and not heard. They are to keep their mouths shut, smile on command, get other Black folks to vote for democrats and defend Massa Joe when told. And for the most part that is what the members of the “Squad” and the other “progressives” have done. The “Squad” capitulated on Build Back Better, supported the obscene military budgets and even voted to condemn as antisemitic any criticism of Zionism and Israel, but it was not enough. The squad and other non-white members like Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) — are being “primaried” next year because the white neoliberal donors that control that party decided that they were just not obsequious enough on the issue of Israel. What these donors want is for all the Black folks and people of color to be like Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the embodiment of a servile, slavish servant of white power.
But Black folks are not the only ones being whipped into shape by the lords of capital.
-
The women presidents at some of the most elite bastions of liberalism are being subjected to a public lynching because they were not rabid enough in their concern for the antisemitism that supposedly has broken out on campuses across the country. Appearing before the U.S. Congress, the angle of questioning was on their respective speech codes and what might trigger retaliatory or protective measures in relationship to antisemitism. The responses from the presidents, while often cold and technical, were all in alignment with the position that the U.S. consistently takes internationally on the issue of the glorification of Nazism and expressions of fascism. Since 2005, the U.S. has opposed United Nations resolutions that condemned Nazism and expressions of fascism. And every year since, the U.S. finds itself virtually alone in opposing the condemnation of Nazism except in the last few years when Ukraine voted with them. And what was the basis of U.S. opposition? The infringement on the freedom of speech and assembly.
U.S. spokespersons evoked the U.S. Constitution as an explanation for their opposition:
“The United States Supreme Court has consistently affirmed the constitutional right to freedom of speech and the rights of peaceful assembly and association, including by avowed Nazis, whose hatred and xenophobia are vile and widely scorned by the American people.”
The problem for the U.S. though is that the international community is operating from a different set of principles. On the issue of “hate speech” the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination is the definitive human rights treaty on this issue.
The Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) is of particular interest because it is one of the few human rights instruments that the U.S. has actually signed and ratified. Article 4 provides a standard for what constitutes Hate speech that goes beyond the acceptable international standards that should not be accepted as protected speech.
In Article 4, it says quite clearly that state parties to the convention should “condemn all propaganda and all organizations which are based on ideas or theories of superiority of one race or group of persons of one colour or ethnic origin, or which attempt to justify or promote racial hatred and discrimination in any form.” Subsection A and B of Article 4 go further to say that states should “declare an offence punishable by law all dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred, incitement to racial discrimination,” and “shall declare illegal and prohibit organizations, and also organized and all other propaganda activities, which promote and incite racial discrimination, and shall recognize participation in such organizations or activities as an offence punishable by law.”
But when ratifying CERD the U.S. issued a declaration on Article 4 that said that it would not be bound by the provision because it contradicts U.S. law on freedom of expression.
The U.S. position affirms that no matter how “vile and widely scorned by the American people” a position might be, it is still protected speech.
This exceptionalist stance has informed the U.S position since 2005 on the issue of Nazism. And is the position affirmed by numerous court rulings that have resulted in overturning efforts to limit “hate speech” domestically. Therefore, the positions of all of the university presidents who made a distinction between the right of expression “no matter how vile,” and possible prohibitions when there is actual conduct involved was consistent with U.S. law and practice.
-
The U.S. and Israel should be expelled from the United Nations at minimum. Charges brought against the Israeli PM, Defense chief, Biden and Blinken, at a minimum. Sanctions imposed on other Israeli & U.S. officials & the evocation of Universal Jurisdiction for those U.S. & Israeli officials.
-
For you pork-chop nationalists with your “I love all Black people” BS, the two head Negros at the United Nations are giving the impression with their votes for U.S. white power, that they also represent the positions of Black folks in the U.S. Those Negros along with that big buck Lonely Lloyd Austin at the Defense Department, Aunt Jemima Harris as VP, Hakeem the white folks dream in Congress and all of the small-time opportunist Negro mayors, chiefs of police, state reps and tom-ass bureaucratic administrators, are all enemies of the people working diligently to uphold white capitalist power. The intensification of internal class struggle must be the call for 2024. Time is up on the obscurantist, sentimental BS advocating for building an alignment with a “nationalist bourgeoisie” ready to fight for African/black self-determination in the U.S. or anywhere else!
-
We have too many prominent Uncle Toms, even among so-called Black radicals who push a Democratic Party line on the need to protect Biden and democrats as though those criminals will protect African/Black peoples. Gaza should be a wake-up call.
-
Folks, we have to be courageous enough to be honest. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) are white supremacist organizations.
-
The Israeli fascists and their supporters know that the only way to defeat the Palestinian resistance is to commit genocide against Palestinians. That essentially is what they are doing with the assistance from the U.S. fascists in both parties.
-
Where is the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Netanyahu and Biden? This is precisely why these institutions lack credibility outside of the West. Where is the universal jurisdiction that allows a state to issue and arrest international criminals? So much for international law and Western Human Rights.
-
What a joke. Israeli fascists calling Palestinian resistance nazis.
The white supremacist U.S. Congress can pass all the resolutions in the world but for those of us who can still think and who are guided by higher principles, we will never stop defining Zionism as an oppressive, fascist framework.
Ajamu Baraka is Chairman of the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace and an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the U.S. based United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) and the Steering Committee of the Black is Back Coalition.
In this week’s segment we hear about Cuba, the challenges of Caribbean unity, and resistance to U.S. efforts to destroy the revolution. But we begin with Iran and discuss how its defense capabilities…
Iran is a more formidable foe than the US anticipated. The U.S. goal of regime change failed because of Iran's military power and determination to defend itself. In Washington the "Secretary of War"…
The United States has attempted to defeat the Cuban revolution from its earliest days and for more than 60 years has embarked on sabotage, economic coercive measures, and now a three-month long…
It’s up to Americans to stop the Trump administration from using U.S. power to strong‑arm Brazil and interfere in their elections.
With the economic strangulation of Cuba by the United States, African progressive organizations and movements are calling for broader continental solidarity.
