The Forgotten War, And How the Masses Liberate Themselves
The political thought of Jalil Muntaqim
This book has but one purpose: to raise political consciousness and broaden the base for revolutionary activity.
Jalil Muntaqim, We Are Our Own Liberators
How does one survive behind enemy lines? Some find the calling of a higher power, hoping their newfound faith will bring salvation in this life or the next. Others turn to the opposing side, broken by the domination of their captors. But some brave souls, despite the odds, continue to fight. Former political prisoner, Black Panther Party (BPP) member, and Black Liberation Army (BLA) soldier Jalil Muntaqim is one such brave soul. Incarcerated for forty-nine (!!) years, he spent that time continuing his political education and activism, changing the theater of battle from the physical to the intellectual. The results of this rigorous work are recorded in his book, We Are Our Own Liberators: Selected Prison Writings.
Now in its third edition (published independently through Black Dragon Multimedia Management Enterprise LLC; available for purchase here), the book is a collection of essays, poems, and strategic manuals for political organizing. As the above quote suggests, Muntaqim’s desire for this book is clear - to educate and activate the Black masses. He also dedicates a few pieces to some fallen comrades. However, we will get there in time. Before that, a (brief) look at the forgotten war: The War Against the Black Liberation Movement.
Notes From Underground
They were pursued across the country. Beaten. Shot. Those who weren’t killed, or miraculously escaped, were imprisoned, where they were labelled “terrorists” and met with inhumane conditions. Yet they continued their armed resistance, attacking major domestic colonial institutions and even freeing some political prisoners.
This is the story of the Black Liberation Army, as documented by Jalil Muntaqim throughout We Are Our Own Liberators. Founded (officially) in 1971, the BLA emerged from what Muntaqim refers to as the “Black underground,” a collection of groups across the country looking to support the Black liberation struggle in more militant ways. As he recounts in his article, On the Black Liberation Army,
“From 1969 to 1972, the [Black Panther Party] came under vicious attack by the State and Federal government. The government employed COINTELPRO (FBI, CIA and local police departments) as a means to destroy the above-ground political apparatus that fielded the Black underground. But it wasn’t until 1969 that the BPP began its purge of many of its most trusted and militant members, many of whom eventually joined the Black underground.”
This Black underground took on a more active role in ‘71, following the split in the Black Panther Party between the factions of Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver. Muntaqim continues later on,
“…prior to the split, the Black underground was the official armed wing of the above-ground political apparatus, and thereby had to maintain restraint in its military activity…although in many areas experienced in tactical military guerrilla warfare, it was still infantile politically…it did not establish an infrastructure completely autonomous from the above-ground BPP cadres and Party chapters. This…became one of the major detriments to the Black underground after the split of the Black Panther Party.”
Muntaqim lists the BLA activity reported on by the U.S. Justice Department between 1970 and 1976. One immediately notices the drop in reported activity after a peak between ‘71 and ‘73. In addition to the BPP split, the lack of community support and abandonment by “Euro-American revolutionary armed forces” fighting against the Vietnam War meant the BLA was virtually on its own. As Muntaqim writes, “By 1974-75, the fighting capacity of the Black Liberation Army had been destroyed, but the BLA as a politico-military organization had not been destroyed.”
Those still committed to the Black Liberation Movement had to pivot. If they could not continue their armed struggle (due to lack of resources or physical incarceration), then they would continue their political and ideological struggle. Those BLA members now locked down by the American penal system, along with their comrades on the outside, started a Coordinating Committee. This committee’s first project was “A MESSAGE TO THE BLACK MOVEMENT - A Political Statement from the Black Underground.” This document, states Muntaqim, articulated “the theoretical foundation of the political determination of the Black Liberation Army.” Throughout the rest of the decade, BLA members organized prisoners, ultimately building a human rights case to present to the United Nations, which is discussed later in this essay.
For his part, Muntaqim continued reading, writing, and organizing. We Are Our Own Liberators is full of his sharp political analysis of American domestic and foreign policy. He begins the book with a poetic reflection on the 2008 presidential election of Barack Obama, in his piece The Obama-Nation. Muntaqim proclaims that,
“A future is born with a change of power on this day and in this hour with an oath of office the Obama-Nation must stand in allegiance, against torture, Abu [Ghraib], Guantanamo Bay, rendition and detention, just to mention how the U.S. derelictions became the world’s affliction.”
In the same piece, he excoriates the Black bourgeoisie (a consistent object of Muntaqim’s ire) when he writes, “By virtue of the ballot, the revolution has been hijacked, the Black bourgeoisie has been notified America is not sanctified and the promise land gentrified as the Obama-Nation is satisfied.”
He continues this theme in the essay, Africans in the Diaspora and the Black Bourgeoisie, where he adopts Malcolm X’s famous dichotomy of the house Negro and field Negro. Here’s Muntaqim:
“[Malcolm X’s] analogy appropriately explains the present relationship the Black bourgeoisie, as house negros, maintain the colonial U.S. government. The same mentality prevails, whereby the Black bourgeoisie have become neo-colonial agents of government policies.”
In the post-Civil Rights era, the new Black middle class keeps the status quo in check, to the detriment of poor and working-class Black people. While appearing after The Obama-Nation in the book, Africans in the Diaspora and the Black Bourgeoisie was written first, sometime in the 1980s. Muntaqim is consistent in his perspective. He is also consistent in who his enemies are. In a later piece in the book, The Criminalization of Poverty in Capitalist America, Muntaqim forcefully declares,
“When we look at downtown urban centers, when we look at the lines of humanity waiting for food or a bed at the missions; if we look at the faces of people living in cardboard boxes on the streets of the cities, we must know that a crime has been committed.”
America’s prison system, however, does not punish those responsible. Instead, it incarcerates poor people, while “the real criminals are those who create the socio-economic conditions that perpetuate impoverishment.” Those “real criminals” go by several names in the book, most notably the “power elite” (a term coined by 20th-century sociologist C Wright Mills). They are the combination of monopoly-capitalist institutions (think Amazon, Goldman Sachs, or Google, for example) with the military-industrial complex (CIA, FBI, local police, armed forces, etc.). It is these entities that run the capitalist-imperialist system, halting true liberation for poor and working-class people, as well as oppressed national groups (as Muntaqim calls the many numerical minority races, ethnicities, and nationalities in the United States, referred to today sometimes as people of color).
Muntaqim thus analyzes American society and finds it rotten at its core, with a legacy of colonial oppression of Black and indigenous (as well as Mexican and Puerto Rican) people domestically, imperial warmongering abroad, and ubiquitous capitalist exploitation. The problem is the system itself. So what is to be done?
How to Build a Nation
What is required is rectifying the assimilationist/integrationist philosophy, and forging a socio-economic political and cultural determinant that coalesces in a New Afrikan reality.
Jalil Muntaqim, The Perverse Slave Mentality
Forty-nine years is a long time. A long time to be caged, held against your will, and treated as a slave (as prisoners can be under the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution). But for one radically committed to their humanity and liberation, it’s also a long time to think. Plan. Strategize. That is what Jalil Muntaqim did. Specifically, Muntaqim set out to fill the void left by the lack of blueprints and concrete programs among Black political figures. The result - Muntaqim’s key political philosophy: The Three Phase Theory for National Independence, and its main engine, the Front for the Liberation of the New Afrikan Nation (FROLINAN). Several documents, reprinted in full in the book, explain this philosophy and the strategy for implementing it. Two papers will be discussed here.
(NOTE: This section deals with Muntaqim’s most theoretical work, and must be handled carefully. It may be a little dense in parts.)
We begin with the 1979 pamphlet, For the Liberation of North America. The pamphlet is a meditation on how to develop a revolutionary political organization. It contains several parts: the role and qualities of leadership, organizational structure and hierarchy, and the role of the masses. A committed soldier, Muntaqim declares early in the work,
“My primary premise is that our struggle must become more militant, with a greater anticipation of armed confrontation with the enemy(s) of the poor and oppressed masses.”
This stance puts a line in the sand between those who are truly revolutionary, and those who, according to Muntaqim, are “…for the most part…in cahoots with U.S. imperialism…” Those who embrace urban and rural guerrilla warfare must do so in support of political action (i.e., workers’ strikes, political marches). This is reminiscent of the original BLA strategy: above ground = political, underground = military. The justification for this hardline, militant position is thus,
“U.S. imperialist warmongers are strengthening their positions with right-wing political forces in government and corporate-industrial, military-complex financial support. Fascism is broadening its capacity to emerge as an open policy-making force in North America.”
Muntaqim indicts President Jimmy Carter and Senator Edward Kennedy (today seen in mainstream American politics as shining examples of American liberalism and peace) as those bringing about the rise of fascism. For revolutionaries like Muntaqim, right-wing isn’t party exclusive.
Muntaqim then tackles the leadership question. Almost anyone has the potential to be a leader, at any scale within a revolutionary org. That potential, however, must be transformed through rigorous study. The revolutionary leader must be
“…thoroughly versed in the principles of revolutionary analysis (i.e. dialectical historical materialism1) and the science of Marxism-Leninist, Mao Tse Tung thought, and understands the historical dialectical experience of such principles applicable to revolutionary nationalism and internationalism (Castro, Cabral, Malcolm X, Ho Chi [Minh])…”
Without delving too deep in the weeds, it’s worth offering a note about dialectical materialism. It is, more than anything, a method to investigate change in the natural and social world. It recognizes the inherent dynamism of our material reality, as phenomena are changed through their own internal contradictions, and the clash between opposing forces that results. It also acknowledges the methodologist’s place in this process, not as a detached observer, but as an active agent. This methodology was used by many revolutionary figures in the 20th century. BLA members saw their struggle in the same vein as these 20th century national liberation wars across the Global South, including China, Vietnam, Cuba, Guinea Bissau, and others. The ideology that informed BLA’s work, therefore, was of the same schools of thought as those other struggles. The point is to be both class-conscious and anti-imperialist in one’s outlook.
Potential leaders are found among the masses of people, those who build institutions (community patrols, food pantries, homeless shelters, etc.) and naturally take prominent positions in the spontaneous uprisings that erupt in the country. The leaders arise from two social classes: the “lower and middle class students and workers” and the lumpen-proletariat2 (the lowest class in a country, without “legitimate” employment; petty criminals and sex workers historically fall in this category).
These two classes are directly motivated to cause revolution given their place in society. Students (high school and college) are learning about the world while global events are forcing them to apply the knowledge. At the time this pamphlet was written, there were active struggles in South Africa, Palestine, and Latin America. College students had to develop some perspective with relation to these events, especially given the U.S. government’s role in supporting counter-revolution efforts in those regions. Additionally, the lumpen-proletariat, as the most neglected and harassed in society, hold no stake in the status quo. They are, in some sense, always primed for revolution.
Leadership quality is determined by three criteria:
Align the org completely with the needs and aspirations of the masses they serve.
“Place politics in command.” The group should be maintained through political standards, which will eliminate any opportunism from arising.
Build a broad coalition (or “United Front” as Muntaqim calls it) with other revolutionary and progressive organizations.
Leadership discernment is also determined by three tactical methods:
Persuasion - “…gaining consent in forging the organization’s purpose void of deceit, force or violence.”
Manipulation - “…art of deception, parrying and feigning a direct confrontation while at the same time continuing to build towards the desired objective.”
Coercion - “…to meet force with force and to overcome an obstacle by compelling it to submit to a will or force beyond its immediate control.”
Revolutionary leaders must complete all the quality criteria, and deploy all tactical methods at some point in the revolution. Lastly, the leader’s character adheres to three principles:
Being a “humanitarian,” intently listening to the needs of the masses and taking care of them through program development and institution-building efforts.
Being a “statesman,” which includes translating the people’s frustration into political rhetoric and programs.
Being a steady “administrator” of the organization, keeping members disciplined, and completing their political objectives.
The next section of the pamphlet addresses the structure of the organization in question. There are three standard forms: pyramid, 3-3-3 system, and 10-20-30 system. The pyramid is the most common. It is completely top-down, with a single leader or central committee determining policy and giving orders to subordinates below. This process, when deployed by a revolutionary organization, is defined as “democratic centralism.” The 3-3-3 system is
“…similar in principle to the pyramid, except that instead of a single top position…there are three top positions. Each official is responsible to educate and organize three other persons…”
An organization member in the 3-3-3 system is only responsive to the one who recruited them, and the three members they recruited. The structure allows for more specialization, and is more decentralized than the pyramid, allowing for more resilience. The major weakness of 3-3-3 is that eliminating one member divorces those below them from the rest of the organization (at least for a time). The 10-20-30 system is the most horizontal. One member (or group) is tasked with recruiting only one other member (group), who in turn must recruit one more. Thus, the org doubles, triples, quadruples in size. An organization can scale quickly using 10-20-30, but it makes discipline and vetting potential members more difficult. While distinct, the three forms can be used interchangeably, given proper strategy.
From strategy and organizational structure comes tactics. Muntaqim states:
“The most necessary tactical initiative must be through the use of agitation-propaganda.”
Agitation-propaganda is about political education, consciousness raising, and mobilizing. It moves from “…simple slogans, leafletting, and distribution of literature - toward larger rallies, marches and demonstrations.” This goes hand-in-hand with institution building, what Muntaqim calls “community liberation associations.” These are the food co-ops, housing shelters, medical clinics, and community patrol units that service people directly. They must be explicitly political in nature, always educating those they serve about the failures of monopoly-capitalism to meet these basic needs.
A fully developed agitation-propaganda initiative evolves into “confrontation politics.” At this stage in the revolution, the movement is powerful enough to directly disrupt the daily operation of the State (the government), through strikes, sit-ins, boycotts, and even destruction of property. This is done along with the armed struggle initiated by the military guerrilla formations in the movement. Tactics develop in this manner because, as Muntaqim explains:
“…revolution is a conspiracy, and all revolutionaries are conspirators to overthrow the State.”
And what of the masses themselves? As Muntaqim analyzed, by 1979 the United States was in the midst of massive de-industrialization, with major industries moving their factories to Third World (now called Global South) nations. This reduces the number and variety of jobs available, increasing competition among workers, and reducing wages across the board. Combined with the cyclical recessions endemic to modern capitalist economies, prices for goods and services increase (inflation). This situation leaves working class people in increasingly dire conditions, with few solutions being offered by politicians and mainstream pundits.
This does not mean that the masses are powerless, however. Through sheer numbers and proper organization, they can affect domestic and foreign policy. Muntaqim uses the examples of the equal rights amendment and supporting miner's strikes domestically, and rallies against apartheid in South Africa and Palestine internationally, as issues that the masses made positive gains on. Two of the largest movements at the time were against racial and gender oppression. Muntaqim saw this as a positive, but felt those movements needed to become more explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist. This was the role of revolutionary orgs, to add that dimension to gender equality and anti-racist struggles. Crafting revolutionary consciousness among the masses would also consolidate the many issues that people may rally behind (in addition to the social issues mentioned there were rallies around education, the environment, nuclear weapons, and prisoners’ rights, among others).
All of this was the work of revolution. But revolution to what end?
National Strategy for FROLINAN (Front for the Liberation of the New Afrikan Nation) is the second-longest piece in the book. About 45 pages long, Muntaqim first lays the historical and ideological basis for Black people in the United States to pursue a nationalist project. He starts with a definition. FROLINAN, for Muntaqim, is:
“…a revolutionary nationalist front to establish a movement for national independence, to free the national territory of Kush from the colonial (U.S.A.) government.”
The use of Kush harkens back to the African continent, as that was the name of an ancient, pre-colonial region in Eastern Africa3. For Muntaqim, the development of FROLINAN is a total decolonization process, including a political, economic, and cultural rejection of the United States. The larger movement, of which FROLINAN is part, is called the New Afrikan Independence Movement (NAIM). The role of FROLINAN is to provide political and ideological clarity to the movement as a whole.
Those looking to become FROLINAN members must adhere to a number of prerequisites, including recognizing the Republic of New Afrika (official government and country name) as an oppressed nation within the United States, accepting its Declaration of Independence, supporting its armed front - the New Afrikan People Liberation Army (NAPLA), supporting the FROLINAN strategy, identifying as anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-racist/fascist, and pro-national independence, and lastly:
“Believe and have faith in the creative ingenuity, spiritual quality and humanity of our New Afrikan people and the historical, cultural, socio-economic, and political productivity of our struggle for national independence.”
The piece then delves into the historical development of the New Afrikan identity. Muntaqim breaks it into four “epochs”. First is the post-Civil War era:
“This was a period when the slavocracy gave birth to mercantile capitalism; the gross surplus of such commodities as cotton, tobacco, sugar, etc., produced from slave labor in the South provided economic-textile-industrial growth and development in northern states.”
Sharecropping and convict leasing virtually reinstated slavery in the South, while the Reconstruction government was eliminated due to an alliance between southern and northern whites. One of the first responses to this was the 1905 Niagara Movement, headed by eminent scholar W.E.B. DuBois. This was the beginning of the NAACP, and the birth of integration as a real strategy for Black people. It was also the rise of Pan-Africanism, where DuBois was also a major intellectual presence. The second epoch was the rise of Garveyism in the 1920s. Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” campaign and Black nationalist politics captivated millions. It also stood at odds with DuBois’s approach (the conflict between DuBois and Garvey is infamous).
The third epoch contains the progeny of the Niagara and Garvey movements. The integrationist approach continued with the Civil Rights movement, spearheaded by Martin Luther King Jr and his SCLC, along with the NAACP, Urban League, and others. The nationalist approach in this epoch was exemplified by The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and his Nation of Islam (founded in the 1940s). They were explicitly separatist, calling for a Black nation in the Black Belt region of the South. Their program was based primarily on religious conversion and self-help (Muntaqim identifies their economic program as Black capitalism). The Nation blossomed during the time Malcolm X was involved (1950s and ‘60s), as he recruited an incredible number of people.
The final epoch was the Black Panther Party, and Black Power era more broadly. This was the closest to a synthesis of the contradiction between the integrationist (civil rights) and nationalist/independence (human rights) schools of Black politics. While FROLINAN stands firmly on the nationalist side, it does not abandon the lessons of the integrationist tradition. One of those (developed in part by DuBois) is a firm rejection of Black capitalism.
Muntaqim sees Black capitalism as a ploy by the U.S. government to “consolidate a national bourgeoisie neo-colonial class comprised of Black businessmen, civil rights leaders and elected officials.” Given their use of Blackness to promote monopoly-capitalism, Muntaqim refers to this class as “bourgeoisie cultural nationalism,” which is “progressive in form and reactionary in content.” He explains further:
“The Black middle class, petty bourgeoisie cultural nationalist…is progressive in form by collecting and consolidating our talented, educated, and skilled Black people in a national formation to supposedly represent the interests of the oppressed New Afrikan masses. It is reactionary in content by developing Black capitalism intricately tied to U.S. monopoly capitalism, since Black capitalism would rely on capitalist-imperialism for its own growth and development…”
Having laid the groundwork, Muntaqim gets into his Three Phase Theory for National Independence. The first phase is Class Struggle for National Unity. New Afrikans will not be aligned as long as the integration-independence contradiction exists. Several socioeconomic classes with the Black nation are committed to integration. These include the neocolonialist bourgeoisie (major civil rights groups like NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus, even Motown Records) and the integrationist element of the petty bourgeoisie (skilled professionals and small business owners). Then there are the nationalist petty bourgeoisie. While independence-minded, their embrace of Black capitalism makes them reformist in nature, and not a truly revolutionary class.
Next are the Black proletariat (semi-skilled and manual laborers, office workers, etc.) This class contains the largest segment of the Black population. The neocolonial oppression faced by the Black proletariat affects every aspect of their lives, from housing to healthcare. Thus their relationship to the system is antagonistic. Finally we have the Black lumpen-proletariat, who Muntaqim calls the “illegitimate capitalist.” They are focused solely on survival, and thus are either apolitical or reactionary in their politics. They must be re-educated to be useful to the revolution.
FROLINAN and the NAIM must remove the Black bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie from positions of power and authority in Black communities. Having done this, they can establish a revolutionary program driven by the proletariat and those revolutionary elements in the other classes who are committed to the FROLINAN strategy. Then, on to phase two: National Unity for Self Government.
Phase two emerges directly from phase one. As Muntaqim indicates:
“The programs and struggle for civil and human rights are tactical initiatives to build and sustain the movement on the socio-economic level, while ideologically and politically the class struggle evolves political class consciousness on a national level to the ideals of independence and self government.”
By properly aligning the interests of the masses, the ideology of the revolutionary front, and the skills of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, Black people can take control of their communities and challenge the American capitalist-imperialist system. And control means complete control of all “institutions, resources and wealth of the oppressed nation.” This phase includes the beginning of building a New Afrikan economic system (investment in select industries and connections to other nations), the building of a proper military force, building political infrastructure and holding votes on select issues, and a demand for reparations from the United States government.
Only once this is complete can New Afrikans attempt phase three: Self Government for National Independence. Phase three is the New Afrikan War of Independence, if you will. Muntaqim explains:
“The mobilization of New Afrikans will be in national demonstrations, and strangling the economic development of the colonial government, as well as intensifying the guerrilla war in both urban and rural areas, gaining international support on the specific objectives of national independence.”
The institutions needed for the Three Phase Theory to be successful are also laid out. They include (but are not limited to) a National Union for New Afrikan Workers (NUNAW), for FROLINAN activists in the workplace to organize and educate on the issue of national self-determination. New Afrikan Independence Academy (NAIA) network of liberation schools, along with two youth initiatives: Panther Youth Corps and New Afrikan Children Centers. There’s also the National Organization of New Afrikan Women (NONAW) to address the specific needs and ambitions of women in the movement, and to dedicate adequate resources to combating gender discrimination and inequality.
Half a century of study and thought has thus produced a holistic plan and far-sighted vision for Black liberation. Muntaqim’s political contributions are solidified. Incredibly, however, that’s not all he did.
“My Blues is Black”: Muntaqim, Griot for the Fallen
They say all peoples gots the blues is yours like mine? it might be Azure or Powder, possibly Aqua or Navy. What is the blues to you?
Jalil Muntaqim, “What Color is Your Blues?”
A word about Muntaqim’s poetry. It is sprinkled throughout the book and covers several major themes: continued condemnation of the system, building a new radical consciousness, and eulogizing the fallen. The first two themes have been discussed above and will not be explained here.
The eulogies (there are three of them) are our current focus. These poems are intriguing - they’re some of the few times Muntaqim mentions other revolutionaries and comrades by name. This is probably intentional, as Muntaqim writes earlier in the book, “It is our policy not to reveal the names of Comrades who have acted within our organizational underground formations.” Those who are mentioned were already public figures before their passing.
The first eulogy poem we encounter in the book is a tribute to Illinois BPP Chapter Chairman Fred Hampton and Captain Mark Clark, whose work and assassinations have more recently been popularized in the 2021 Hollywood film Judas and the Black Messiah. Entitled “Chairman Fred and Captain Mark”, Muntaqim opens the poem with,
When they come in the morning, will you be ready? Before the rooster crows, like chicken coming home to roost, they always come in the morning!
A harrowing introduction, Muntaqim paints the scene of the assassinations, with FBI and local police storming the house before sunrise. Again, he borrows from Malcolm, this time using his “chickens coming home to roost” line, Malcolm’s response to the assassination of President John F Kennedy.
Muntaqim continues, several stanzas later,
Before dawn, they raided under the blanket of a star fallen night, dispensing fright, and murder, and death... Their bullets flew like the spray of demented holy water to exorcise, to purify in the gospel of their racist might, sanctifying their existence. And Two Laid Dead!
His exorcism simile is apt, considering one of the FBI’s main objectives in their war against the Panthers (and other Black revolutionary orgs) was to prevent the rise of a so-called “Black messiah.” Fred Hampton was eyed as a potential messiah and thus was eliminated.
True to his literary form, whether poetry or prose, Muntaqim is raw in his descriptions. He wants his audience to feel the uncensored truth of the world he describes. But he does not wallow in despair. It is all motivation to keep fighting. He ends “Chairman Fred and Captain Mark” by quoting Fred Hampton,
"You can kill a revolutionary, But you can't kill a revolution. You can jail a freedom fighter, But you can't jail freedom!"
Muntaqim gives space to another writer in the book, former Black Panther Elaine Brown. Her short poem, “A Black Panther Song,” is a tribute to a lesser-known political prisoner, Albert Nuh Washington, who died in 2000 while still incarcerated. Brown starts with a question,
Have you ever stood In the darkness of night Screaming silently you're a man?
Brown’s words reflect another recurring theme in some of Muntaqim’s pieces - being silenced as a Black man in white America. How does one respond to a society that doesn’t respect their basic humanity? Brown has an answer,
Well then believe it my friends That the silence will end We'll just have to get guns and Be men.
We must confront dehumanization head-on, ready to defeat it and reclaim our honor. It is only then that a new reality can be formed, and we can live in our full humanity.
The last poem demonstrates Muntaqim’s commitment to a broad coalition beyond the New Afrikan nation. His tribute to Puerto Rican independence fighter, Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, entitled “Filiberto’s Song,” is in some ways the most personal of the three poems. Ríos was assassinated in 2005, a move which sparked protests on the island. “Filiberto’s Song” is a cultural tour-de-force, with Muntaqim reminiscing,
Viejo, I hear you from a distant land, your words of liberation, freedom and independence cuts the wind of tyranny, the howling ravishing wolves of the U.S. neo-colonialism and exploitation. ... Their echo's reverberates into chords of Afrikan drums and coqui rhythms with the sweetness of cocquitos... Libertad, Libertad, Libertad, Libertad, Libertad...
The echoes in question are those of the ancestors, Black and Puerto Rican, whose wisdom has been passed down to Ríos (and Muntaqim). They call on each successive generation to continue the revolution in whatever way they can, until the job is done.
Through Muntaqim’s potent artistry, we remember those who gave their lives for their people, for freedom, for a radical new humanism.
Human Rights, but for whom?
Who speaks for those behind bars? Those that respectable American society has deemed a menace? For Jalil Muntaqim, the prisoners speak for themselves. During his nearly 50-year bid, Muntaqim organized prisoners to advocate for better conditions and appealed to outside authorities (including internationally) to further examine American prisons. In the document, A Case Against United States Domestic (neo) Colonialism, Muntaqim makes it plain:
“Oppressed persons locked away in the U.S. penal system are exposed to the most repressive measures the U.S. government has to offer in its attempts to prevent the continued growth and development of the class and national liberation struggle.”
These measures include “forced sterilizations and drugging,” and denial of “adequate diets, health care, and safe working conditions” among other atrocities. It is this document that provides Muntaqim’s full definition of “political prisoner of war,” which is:
“…prisoners who ‘have consciously rebelled against prison administrators, inhumane work and living conditions, racism and guard-police brutality, and who have further exposed conditions to the public by organizing strikes, takeovers, and sit-in demonstrations supporting and building the prison movement in conjunction with the anti-colonial, anti-imperialist movement. They are those prisoners who have been confined for their political activity in the oppressed nation communities, for educating, organizing and mobilizing the oppressed people to resist (neo)colonialism. And they are those prisoners who have been imprisoned because of their direct military acts against a system of national oppression - for the liberation of an oppressed class or nation.’ ”
Having presented his case and definitions, Muntaqim then appeals to international legal authority. He first quotes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. In particular, he focuses on Article 15, which states:
Everyone has a right to a nationality.
No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Muntaqim thus finds the U.S. guilty of violating this article. For Black Americans (whose nationality Muntaqim sees as New Afrikan) and for indigenous American peoples, the U.S. government has systematically denied their right to a nationality. But he goes even further. Muntaqim invokes Articles II and III of the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which states (in part):
“…genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole of in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, such as:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
among other examples. All are punishable under international law. The conditions in “oppressed nation communities,” fall under the category of genocide. These include “sterilization programs…the trafficking of drugs; constant police killings…and the wholesale imprisonment of Africans, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Asians and Mexican people.”
Specifically regarding political prisoners of war (POWs), Muntaqim argues that as “oppressed colonies fighting for national liberation and self-determination,” they are protected under U.N. General Assembly Resolution 2621 (XXV). Political POWs, according to Muntaqim, should be given amnesty under international law, to either be released on their own accord or to “exchange to a non-imperialist country that will accept them.” This document, which builds the case against the U.S., served as one of the intellectual foundations for the National POW Amnesty Campaign, which still exists in various forms, including Muntaqim’s own Jericho Movement.
—
Muntaqim ends the book as he began, with a word about President Obama. He admonishes his readers, writing:
“Obama-mania has claimed you! But can you see the forest beyond the trees? ‘We the People’ must take a stand, and free the land of political leeches…”
Obama is of course the pinnacle of Black bourgeois achievement, earning the highest political honor in the land. And yet the masses still suffered (and continue to). Having exhausted the integrationist options, it is back to the drawing board. Which means turning back to the people. Back to revolution. Back to FROLINAN.
Jalil Muntaqim was released from prison in 2020. Since then, he has continued the fight, including publishing the 3rd edition of his book and mentoring the next generation of revolutionaries. Asante sana, Baba Muntaqim. Long Live the BLA.