Ooops, was just saving my draft to go take a nap when I accidentally hit the
send button. Will complete as resend later.

Kabir.


On 4/23/07, Kabir Njaay <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> It is indeed true that in most cases of liberation struggles it is the
> middle-class that assumes the leadership role but probably the earliest
> attempt at liberation war from colonialism by someone that emerged from with
> the grassroots. Dedan Kimarhi lead what is commonly reffered to as the Mau
> mau, a rather derogatory term which historians are still scratching their
> head as to its origins.
>
> Freedom Fighters don't come more genuine than the man who led, without
> much theorizing, The Land and Freedom Party of Kenya. His message was simple
> and to the point: Retake the land. Yet, aside from Ngugi who has celebrated
> Dedan from his earliest works as the most genuine Freedom Fight of
> Kenya, the middle-class, from Jombo Kenyata to Moi has shunned both the
> man and his legacy until quite recently when he was finally recognised as a
> liberation hero and had a statue raised in his honour and a Square named
> after him in Nairobi.
>
> Frantz Fanon, on the other hand was never shamed by the man's methods, of
> amongst others simply decapitating the colonislist officers, members of
> their families and whoever participated in the oppression of Kenyans in
> cahoots with the imperialists.
>
> He defended his actions well; who was to judge that his was more brutal
> than that of his adversaries who herded millions of defenceless Kenyans like
> animals into reserves where cattle received more humane treatment than
> humans? Under who's value system was that judgement to be made?
>
> Yet Kenyata may never have been had it not been for the fearless Kimathi,
> who was finally captured and hanged. To this day, despite tireless searches,
> his grave have not been located even though he was brurried in the same
> prison where he was murdered.
>
> I say without him
>
>
> Each man is the sum of his collective experiences whichever way you slice.
> Fanaon himself, a psychiatrist posted by colonial France to Algeria was no
> different to practice his trade, gave psychiatry a new meaning when he
> extended his medical prectice into the Liberation War. Why?
>
> Because according to his reasoning, his patients always returned
> for renewed treatment whenever he discharged them because the source
> and "cause" of their mental illness did not go away. The cause of their
> mental condition was the brutal oppression and subjugation by the colonial
> power. Men with a high premium on "honour" found themselves, their wives and
> daughters being humialited daily at the hands of the colonialists. So Fonon,
> the pragmatist, recognised that unless that source and cause of their mental
> condition was eliminated, all he was treating were symptoms and not the
> cause. For that reason he dedicated his life to help liberate Algerians,
> even refusing to evaquate for treatment of his lukaemia until it wasd to
> late to save his life on arrival in the US. The internationlist in him
> recognised that the struggle to liberate the oppressed was anywhere it found
> him at any given time. Fanon canonized violence as a tool for liberation and
> used it accordingly.
>
> So did Cabral and both their projects succeeded eventually. Of course The
> PAIGC's Liberation War may never have been had Bissau and Cape Verde been
> colonised by another colonial power than Portugal, who refused to give up
> her colonised, waging brutal wars of oppression from Bissau to Angola and
> Mozambique because of abject poverty ayt home. For them it was a do or die
> fight to maintain the right to suck the blood of Africans in order to
> nourished her citizens at home.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 4/23/07, Baba Galleh Jallow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> > On Oppression and the Oppressed – Part Two
> >
> > By Baba Galleh Jallow
> >
> > A discussion of oppression and the oppressed must inevitably lead us to
> > the
> > issue of who leads the struggle for liberation from oppression. In most
> > cases, such a role is assumed by people who are academically and
> > economically better off than the average oppressed person; these people
> > step
> > forward to assume the mantle of leadership against oppression, to act as
> > champions of the oppressed, and as voices of those they consider the
> > voiceless. They form political organizations and create manifestos and
> > slogans proclaiming their aims and objectives, and set about condemning
> > the
> > oppressors while at the same time courting the support of the oppressed
> > by
> > offering themselves up as better alternatives to the oppressors. The
> > interesting thing is that in at least 8 out of 10 cases, these champions
> > of
> > the oppressed fail in their endeavors; or in the rare situations in
> > which
> > they succeed, find themselves proving unequal to their self-assigned
> > task of
> > ending oppression, becoming instead as bad as, or even worse than, the
> > oppressors they dislodge.
> >
> > While there are undoubtedly many reasons for this failure of leadership,
> > a
> > failure to truly identify with the oppressed masses must rank among the
> > top
> > causes. Coming mostly from middle-class backgrounds, most leaders of
> > anti-oppression movements fail to truly identify with the oppressed
> > people.
> > Rather than view and treat the people as partners to be creatively
> > engaged
> > and dialogued with in the course of the struggle against oppression,
> > such
> > leaders specialize in the ephemeral politics of propaganda, slinging mud
> > at
> > their opponents on all sides of the political divide and preaching
> > endlessly
> > to the people on how morally superior they are and what glittering
> > goodies
> > they would deliver should they assume positions of power and authority.
> > They
> > engage in such empty politicking with the erroneous presupposition that
> > all
> > the people want to hear is how their current lot will be improved once
> > the
> > oppressor is removed from power. Sadly, in most cases, these messages,
> > because they sound so commonplace and monotonous, fail to register with
> > the
> > people and these leaders are dismissed as just another bunch of
> > power-hungry
> > politicians.
> >
> > During Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde's struggle for liberation from
> > Portuguese colonialism, Amilcar Cabral repeatedly taught that those
> > intellectuals who wanted to be true and effective leaders of the people
> > must
> > commit what he called class suicide. They must be able to purge
> > themselves
> > of all pretences to superior knowledge, wisdom or leadership skills, and
> >
> > identify totally with the oppressed if they wanted to be authentic
> > leaders
> > of the people. He argued that a leadership that seeks to lead from
> > whatever
> > kind of high pedestal is doomed to failure. Once they totally identify
> > with
> > the people and the people with them, those who assume leadership of the
> > oppressed will find, when they assume positions of political power, that
> > they are either unable or unwilling to become oppressors because of
> > their
> > internalized and assimilated affinities with the people.
> >
> > The necessity of class suicide aside, it has also been observed that
> > some
> > oppressed people tend to be more hostile towards each other than towards
> > their oppressors. Many oppressed people tend to assume a fatalistic
> > attitude
> > vis-à-vis their oppression, blaming their unhappy conditions on divine
> > providence and therefore failing to see any connection between their
> > sufferings and their oppressors. And the oppressor, through a malicious
> > combination of vicious cunning and open brutality, dedicates all his
> > energies at keeping things just this way by making the people believe
> > that
> > the best way to keep out of unnecessary trouble is through a slavish
> > regime
> > of total, unquestioning submission. This often leads to a situation in
> > which
> > all the repressed humiliation and rage of the oppressed are horizontally
> >
> > unleashed at their fellow oppressed at the slightest semblance of
> > provocation. Frantz Fanon observed this curious phenomenon among the
> > oppressed Algerian peasants in The Wretched of the Earth. "While the
> > settler
> > or the policeman has the right the livelong day to strike the native, to
> > insult him, and to make him crawl to them," he writes, "you will see the
> > native reaching for his knife at the slightest hostile or aggressive
> > glance
> > cast on him by another native."
> >
> > But while a certain degree of fear may be excused at the level of the
> > peasant – the oppressed person who does not entirely blame his wretched
> > plight on the oppressor – the issue becomes tricky when we note that
> > this
> > horizontal hostility towards fellow oppressed is also found among the
> > ranks
> > of those who pose as champions of the oppressed. Indeed, the mutual
> > hostility and unhealthy rivalry within and between the leadership of
> > opposition and alternative political parties and organizations in Africa
> > is
> > far more acrimonious than that expressed towards the oppressive regimes
> > they
> > are out to replace. The oppressor regime can dish out any number of
> > demeaning slurs and even outright insults on the heads of opposition
> > leaders
> > with little or no comparable reaction or response. But one mild word of
> > criticism or disagreement from one opposition leader to the other often
> > has
> > the effect of eliciting a disproportionate barrage of invectives against
> > the
> > daring culprit. Some scholars like Paulo Freire and Albert Memmi
> > attribute
> > this strange phenomenon partly to a certain inferiority complex on the
> > part
> > of the opposition leaders and partly to an unconscious desire to be seen
> > as
> > high and mighty as the oppressor and therefore way above being the
> > object of
> > such petty criticisms from their fellow equal opposition leaders.
> >
> > But this tendency of the oppressed to be hostile to their fellow victims
> > of
> > oppression is not limited to the peasant and the leaders alone. It is
> > also
> > observed among the ranks of oppressed people located between the masses
> > on
> > one hand and the leaders on the other. This middle section of "freedom
> > fighters" are often observed engaging in a kind of horizontal hostility
> > with
> > their supposed comrades in the anti-oppression struggle to the extent
> > that
> > they lose sight of their original objective. Thus in discussion groups,
> > Diasporan communities, and internet mailing lists, one observes a
> > troubling
> > level of horizontal hostility and acrimonious debate between people
> > supposed
> > to be fighting for an end to oppression. One observes a troubling trend
> > towards the creation of acute hostility and enmity within the ranks of
> > people who are supposed to be fighting the same monster of oppression
> > and
> > for a certain level of tolerance and mutual respect for one another.
> > What
> > should happen in such forums is not endless bickering, the assumption of
> > rigid, unchanging positions, or the presumption of infallibility, but
> > the
> > observance of maximum civility on all sides – a desire to teach and a
> > readiness to learn; a desire to convince and a readiness to be
> > convinced; a
> > desire to prove that one's position is right, and a readiness to be
> > proven
> > wrong; a habit of always keeping in mind that all human beings are
> > fallible,
> > that people have a right to their opinions, however contrary to one's
> > own;
> > that in building a democratic culture, we must start from within our own
> >
> > selves. Intolerance of dissenting opinion, it should be remembered, is
> > one
> > of the chief defining characteristics of oppression.
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE!
> >
> > http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/
> >
> > ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
> > To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the
> > Gambia-L Web interface
> > at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
> >
> > To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to:
> > http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
> > To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
> > [log in to unmask]
> > ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
> >
>
>

¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html

To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤