Iansá Magazine

By Jasiri Nyerere

 The question, what is an African Internationalist? Is a very straightforward one, and could be answered honestly with the very straightforward answer: “An African revolutionary who is an internationalist.” However, this simple explanation would fail to distinguish African-Internationalism, from the various so called “internationalist” or “socialist” theories of the African Revolutionary Nationalist movement. Or even still, from the many so called “Marxist” or “Leftist” factions who claim to speak for the working class of the world, but fail to acknowledge the necessary significance of the the African-international working-class liberation movement. A movement that has, since the catastrophic military defeat of the Black Revolution of the 60’s, been under constant and vicious assault from the U.S. capitalist-colonialist government, and a large swathe of Black liberal/petty-bourgeois and North American left, whose ideological assaults and political intervention, led the African People’s Socialist Party to coin the phrase “Ideological Imperialists” to describe them. 

To quote from the Introduction to Smash Slander, Build Principled Unity, Written by Chairman Omali Yeshitela of the African Peoples Socialist Party (APSP):

… we were conscious of the enemies of the Revolutionary Nationalist African Independence Movement lurking in the background, prepared to use any obvious differences within our movement against African liberation.

Moreover, as the practice of criticism-self criticism within the Revolutionary Nationalist African Independence movement is so rare, the African People’s Socialist Party had to be careful lest African people, both within and without the movement misunderstand the struggle and interpret it as petty bickering, an attack on movement unity, or a struggle to be resolved by gunfire, not entirely unheard of within liberated circles.

To be clear, adherents to African Internationalism are not dogmatic in ideology, yet doggedly stand in contradistinction with all politics and ideologies which collaborate- intentionally or otherwise – with our oppression and enslavement. 

But what is the Position of an African Internationalist in contrast with those politics and ideologies which collaborate with our oppressors? 

 My close comrade Lukere, President of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement said it best: “African Internationalism is just Internationalism done right.” It is an internationalism free of philosophies alien to African People and colonial supremacist ideology. We emphasize the term “African” in our African-internationalism, not for the sake of Afrophilia, but because we recognize that theories based on alien philosophies and ideologies cannot provide strict, principled leadership to African People, because they are founded in historical experiences and objective conditions in disregard and foreign to our African Nation. 

 We recognize that globally under an international economy of colonialism, Africa and African people’s exploitation is intertwined and vital to the development and sustainability of the International Colonial powers and international capitalist-colonialist economy. The African Working class stands in dialectical opposition to the colonial parasites of the globe, and alone, disjointed, and in dispersion we Africans have withstood the worst terrors perpetrated on mankind since the initial Assault on Africa and Indigenous peoples centuries ago. 

When we center Africa and African people in our approach to a true socialist internationalism, we recognize ourselves as an international and singular African people, through dialectical materialism we understand our dialectical position opposed to capitalist-colonialism, the root contradiction in all of our lives, and with this advanced theory of African Internationalism we are determined to pursue a global movement for the liberation of our Nation from colonial tyranny. 

  To do so, we understand we must first Unite and free the Continent of Africa, the land attached to our shared national identity and heritage, from colonial domination and extraction. Finally, it is from this revolutionary position we methodically apply the principles of historical materialism to inform our analysis of the material forces at work in the history of the African liberation movement leading up to and following the counter-insurgent military defeat of the 60’s, our position and contradiction as African Working-class, relative to all the people of the world, and what must be done for and by Africans going forward, to reclaim our happiness and control of our destiny as African people.

Coexistence vs Independence

In 1914, nearly 500 years after the initial European assault on Africa and 30 years after the Berlin Conference that divided Africa to facilitate European exploitation, the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League was established under the leadership of Marcus Mosiah Garvey. The UNIA launched the international African anti-colonial resistance movement to unite Africans in a concerted effort to liberate and reunify our Motherland and the forcibly dispersed and enslaved African nation. 

Marcus Garvey and the UNIA, as opposed to integrationist factions like W.E.B. Dubois and the National Association for the Advancement of “Certain” People (NAACP), advocated for absolute Black independence—encompassing political self-governance, economic self-reliance, and African-international unity. Garvey believed true liberation from colonial oppression required Black people to build their own institutions, create independent nations, and wrest control of their economic destiny from colonial parasites. 

The most outstanding example of African people trying to build an all-African movement was the movement led by Marcus Garvey and his organization, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). The Garvey Movement was not just about Africans outside of Africa attempting to return to Africa. The UNIA was based all over the world, including in Africa, and had a membership and following that vastly outnumbered the Communist international globally. Africans are, and always have been, the most representative of the global working class. 

 In so many ways, the African People’s Socialist Party carries on the legacy of the movement of Marcus Garvey during the 1920s and his organization of 11 million African members, the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)

The validity of the Garvey Movement can be measured both by the fact that it was part of the worldwide movement for national liberation against colonial domination raging during that period, and that Garvey’s organization and newspaper influenced many of these struggles around the world.

 Notable leaders of this period included Ho Chi Minh of Viet Nam, Sun Yat-sen of China, Emiliano Zapata and Pan-cho Villa of Mexico, Faribundo Marti of El Salvador and Augusto Sandino of Nicaragua, to name only a few of the heads of national liberation movements to wrest control of their countries and peoples from the avaricious grasp of imperialism. None of these leaders and movements was more significant than Marcus Garvey and the UNIA that he created and led.

African Internationalism versus Pan-Africanism 

Marcus Garvey has been incorrectly referred to as a Pan-Africanist, because he called on all Africans around the globe to unite as one nation, with one united destiny. However, to claim he was “Pan-Africanist” because of this- could not be further from the truth. 

Two things will show you who Garvey was; one was after the victory of the Russian Revolution- Garvey sent telegrams of congratulations to Lenin and Trotsky. Second, Garvey’s base was the African working class all around the world. In fact, that’s another reason why DuBois attacked Garvey.

DuBois had a philosophy that he called the “talented tenth.” He believed that the top most educated ten percent of the African population would, with permission of the U.S. bourgeoisie, lead and have the authority over the rest of us. DuBois was a neocolonialist. He created the Pan-African Congress, with backing and support of the White Left and Black petty-bourgois, for the purpose of assaulting the Garvey Movement.

This “Pan-African” Congress was an organization of African Intellectuals and petty-bourgeoisie created by a sector of the African petty-bourgeois assimilationist movement in the U.S. that was aligned with liberal white imperialist capitalism. It was willing to recognize a relationship between Africans worldwide, but was incapable of recognizing Africans as part of the same dispersed nation that had to be physically liberated and united.

Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Walter Rodney and Mangaliso Sobukwe were anomalies within what was referred to as the Pan-Africanist movement because their politics (along with Garvey’s) put them squarely in the camp of African Internationalism.

Even so the influence of Pan-Africanism caused Nkrumah, Lumumba and Sobukwe to meet with political disaster and even death. Without the strength of the armed revolutionary party of the African working class, Nkrumah was overthrown in a U.S.-backed coup in Ghana, Lumumba was assassinated by imperialist forces in Congo, and Sobukwe was imprisoned in Occupied Azania (“South Africa”). This makes another, essential point about the inadequacies of Pan-Africanism: it permits everyone who is called a Pan-Africanist to be characterized as such, whether reactionary or revolutionary.

Unlike Pan-Africanism, African Internationalism informs us that the entire African Liberation Movement worldwide, while engaged in struggle against imperialism wherever we are, must occur under the leadership of the organized African working class. In alliance with the poor peasantry, the African working class is the only social force capable of waging a revolutionary struggle to conclusion in whose revolutionary image the new African personality must be constructed and in whose interests the New African society must be forged.

Vanguard of the African Revolution

African Internationalism is the founding and Uniting theory of The African Peoples Socialist Party, and bases of our 14 point working platform. The revolutionary program of our party that we have united in adherence to achieve our Aims and objectives laid out in Article iii of our Party’s Constitution:

ARTICLE 3.0 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 

3.1​ The aims and objectives of the APSP-USA are to lead the struggle of the African working class and oppressed masses against U.S. capitalist-colonialist domination and all the manifestations of oppression and exploitation that result from this relationship. The Party recognizes that the particular character of the oppression of African people within U.S. borders is domestic or internal colonialism.​ ​Leading the struggle to end the system of domestic colonialism and smash the U.S. capitalist-colonialist state is the immediate task of the African People’s Socialist Party-USA and the African working class in the U.S. 

3.2​ The Party aims to advance the genuine liberation and unification of Africa and African people through its work as the U.S. Front of the worldwide African Revolution, and from this political vantage point fight for the creation of a single All-African Socialist State which will advance the development of a classless, communist society organized around the principle of, from each according to her or his ability and to each according to her or his needs. 

3.3​ The Party works for the emancipation of the laboring masses of the world in every country in the contest against national oppression and capitalist exploitation and to advance the solidarity of all peoples in the relentless battle against imperialism and for the victory of world socialism. 

3.4​ The Party aims to establish a formidable working alliance with progressive parties or forums that subscribe to the goals of the liberation and unification of Africa and African people under the leadership of the African working class and the toiling masses in general.  

The African People’s Socialist Party is distinguishable from other parties and organizations by its strict observance of revolutionary principles and its insistence on a disciplined Party membership. Our Party is not a Party of dogma but a Party of scientific analysis of the material forces affecting African people. All principles, programs, activities, and campaigns of the African People’s Socialist Party are guided by our theory, because we understand that to deviate from the Party’s principles would be to deviate from the cause of African people. African Liberation Parties and organizations not guided by the theory of African Internationalism cannot demand strict adherence to revolutionary principles, and when they attempt to do so, create dogmatic, opportunistic-monsters instead.

These Parties and organizations tend to vacillate with the ever-changing political current. They do not understand the interconnectedness of the worldwide struggle African people are involved in, and they limit their efforts to struggle whose political and geographical boundaries are determined by epistemology alien to the needs and aspirations of African people.

We Party members and African internationalists of the Uhuru Movement stand united with the African diaspora and indigenous and oppressed masses on every corner of the globe, and under the leadership of the African Peoples Socialist Party and African Socialist International, have personally taken up the task of leadership of the African Liberation Movement. We relentlessly strive to uplift African people and carry ourselves worthy of emulation, to unite the African masses onward toward self-liberation and to destroy or neutralize those forces that aim to continue U.S. capitalist-colonialist domination of our African people- and all the manifestations of oppression and exploitation that result from this relationship.

APSP Members Must be known as fighters

The membership of the African People’s Socialist Party consists of the most advanced segment of the general African population. These are people whose social and political consciousness have placed them at the disposal of African people worldwide, through their organized and disciplined involvement in the struggle for our national liberation. African People’s Socialist Party members are people who have voluntarily agreed to adhere to the strict discipline of the African People’s Socialist Party regime, based on their agreement with the Party’s program, and their understanding of our need for a Party that is united in action. 

Being professional, dues paying, revolutionary, freedom-fighters and politicians, a person who comes into the African People’s Socialist Party has dissolved all the selfish individualism/opportunism promoted by the ruling class colonial bosses and become fully reborn as a member of the African People’s Socialist Party national liberation offensive, where all personal and individual interests are subordinated to the interests of African people, as represented by the African People’s Socialist Party and African Socialist International. 

The solidarity of members of the African People’s Socialist Party is not based on feelings, beliefs, personal friendships, etc. The unity of the members of our Party is based on the decision by members to unselfishly serve the cause of African liberation through active and conscious application of the scientific principles of African Internationalism. Unmoved from our belief in the parties Ideology and armed with our code of revolutionary self confidence- We have an unwavering faith in the masses of African people, firm conviction in the justness of our struggle, and a certainty in the inevitability of our victory over the forces of colonialist evil. 

The Party as a whole and each individual member must constantly strive to be known by the masses in their neighborhood or city, as fearless, unrelenting fighters in the interests of the oppressed, colonized African masses. With Our first and most important objective being to WIN BLACK PEOPLE TO THE POSITION OF POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE. This with the knowledge that If the masses of black people are not won over to the position of independence, there will be NO independence for black people. It is as simple as that.

To quote The Political Aspects of Building a Mass Movement: the Tactical and Strategic Objectives for Black Liberation by Chairman Omali Yeshitela:

When we talk here of the need to win our people to the position of independence it must not be assumed that our people are anti-independence or hostile to the notion of independence. Nothing could be further from the truth! Our problem here is that the independence movement has done too little in the area of systematizing and spreading a philosophy of independence which would give us the kind of philosophical influence with our people presently wielded by the anti-independence philosophy of “Integrationism.” And even in those areas where we do put forward some philosophical clarity we have too often failed, or have been unwilling to provide consistent practical leadership for the day-to-day struggles of our people which would give real meaning to the value of our philosophy in the real world.

Together we willingly stand united in acceptance of our theory and Ideology and submission to our party principles of discipline and democratic centralism so that we can develop the foresight and patience necessary to daily forge ourselves into totally committed African Freedom Fighters. We are constantly educating our membership and the African masses of our theory, history, and present condition so that we do not err in our analyses of ours and other peoples struggles domestically and internationally. 

An African Internationalist understands his/her historical responsibility to the Party in its fight for a free, united, socialist nation of African people. Yet, while to be an African Internationalist is a great and noble thing, it is not for everyone to be so. African Internationalists are the most hardline, politically-astute people of our dispersed nation. The disciplined soldiers of freedom, the energetic, the selfless fighters, the builders of a new society, the leaders of the African masses, The Best Sons and Daughters of Africa.

Relentless struggle until Freedom is won

African Internationalism is the only theory that has recognized that capitalism was born on the enslavement of African people and the theft of our resources, the genocide of the Indigenous people and theft of their land, and the colonial plunder of the majority of humanity.

It is a theory that connects the entire history of African resistance – from colonial slavery, the genesis of the advent of capitalism, to the approaching death of imperialism clearly on the horizon.

A theory of national and class struggle today that carries with it the fury of 500 years of African peoples’ struggles against imperialist domination and savagery. African Internationalism exposes the fact that capitalism is parasitic, resting on a pedestal of the exploitation of oppressed peoples, a reality intrinsic to the very nature of capitalism. This understanding thrusts African and oppressed peoples onto the world stage as the leading forces against an imperialism whose very foundation rests on our oppressive exploitation.

African Internationalism has shown that not only the white ruling class, but the entire white population-benefited from the pedestal of oppressive African exploitation and that this parasitic dialectic is the basis for the historic opportunism of white people who have too often struggled for their rights at the expense of the suffering masses of the world. 

African Internationalism is the only theory that explains the crisis of imperialism in the face of the bankruptcy of political thought following the period of imperialist counterinsurgency that set back the African Revolution and other national liberation movements of the 1960s. A living and breathing theory, the theory of African Internationalism is, as the Chairman states, a theory of practice. It is meaningless if it is not honed in the fire of revolutionary struggle and made concrete through the building of organization structured to forward the interests of the African working class. Conversely, political struggle is aimless without the strategic direction and political analysis of African Internationalism.

A true African Internationalist understands that total and unrelenting commitment to the struggle is necessary. Our everyday thoughts are about  Freedom. When we go to bed, the last thought on our mind is Freedom. When we arise in the new day, our first thought is about Freedom. To be an African Internationalist revolutionary means, above all, to merge one’s own desires and actions with the desires and actions of African liberation. This is a process that we continuously struggle to achieve, but it is what we have deemed necessary to build a society for African People that will, in the words of Kwame Nkrumah: “Advance the triumph of the international socialist revolution, and onward progress towards world communism, under which, every society is ordered on the principle of – from each according to … ability, to each according to … needs.” 

These are the necessary qualities of African Internationalists, and foundational principles of African Internationalism.