Brother You’re Right/We Gonna Fight: Perspectives on Zimbabwe

We will find out soonly

Who is the real revolutionary

I don’t want my people to be contrary

-Bob Marley, “Zimbabwe”

How the words of Bob Marley haunt the ruling circles of Zimbabwe. Some 27 years after liberation from settler rule, massive unemployment, decling infrastructure increased has lead to open challenges to the leadership of President Robert Mugabe. Mugabe, 80, is considered by many to be the last living link to Africa’s anti-colonial struggle, which has earned him the scorn of British and American imperialism. Currently Zimbabwe has been cut off from aid to the International Monetary Fund, their leadership has been subject to travel bans, while the “opposition” of Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change has been funded by funded by “human rights” groups and “groomed” for leadership.

Malcolm, Siempre, Malcolm

 

May 19th would have been Malcolm X’s (El Hajj Malik Shabazz) 82nd birthday.

These are the things I learned from Brother Malcolm:

Be the Media: Before the IMC movement, Malcolm X was a proponet of alt. media. As a writer he started Muhammed Speaks. As a Black public intelluctual in the ZTV age, he

Principle: Malcom was politcally sharp, but at the same time he understood the need to bring people together.  His ablity to stand for something while at the same time making trasparent his mistakes served as a learning tools for political organizers. Indeed, I learned from Malcolm is that people respect those who disagree with them more than people that act as “yes men.”

Style: From the conk and zoot suit to the clean cut blazers and ties, Malcolm stood for the apex of style. His post-Mecca goatee and short Afro prefigured the Black Power aesthetics of the 1960s.