Feb 20th, 2003, 12:12 AM
AAPR Brochure
AN ALL-AFRICAN PEOPLE'S REVOLUTIONARY PARTY
Educational Brochure
"All people of African descent, whether they
live in North or South America, the Caribbean,
or in any part of the world are Africans and
belong to the African nation."
- Kwame Nkrumah
WE ARE AFRICAN PERIOD!
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"The All-African People's Revolutionary Party
recognizes that African People born and
living in over 113 countries around the world
are one People, with one identity, one
history, one culture, one Nation and one
destiny. We have one common enemy. We
suffer from disunity, disorganization and
ideological confusion. And we have only one
scientific and correct solution,
Pan-Africanism: the total liberation and
unification of Africa under scientific
socialism."
- From "Some Aspects of the A-APRP"
>>
"Having complete control over Africa, the
colonial powers of Europe projected the image
of Africa negatively. They always project
Africa in a negative light: jungle, savages,
cannibals, nothing civilized. Why then
naturally it was so negative that it was
negative to you and me, and you and I began
to hate it. We didn't want anybody calling us
Africans. In hating Africa and in hating the
Africans we ended up hating ourselves, without
even realizing it. Because you can't hate the
roots of a tree and not hate the tree. You
can't hate your origin and not end up hating
yourself. You can't hate Africa and not hate
yourself.
"You show me one of these people over here who
has been thoroughly brainwashed and has a
negative attitude toward Africa, and I'll show
you one who has a negative attitude toward
himself. You can't have a positive attitude
toward yourself and a negative attitude toward
Africa at the same time. To the same degree
that your understanding of and attitude toward
Africa become positive, you'll find that your
understanding of and your attitude toward
yourself will also become positive. And this
is what the white man knows. So they very
skillfully make you and me hate our African
Identity, our African characteristics."
- Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks
We are African Period
Africans born/living outside of Africa have
been deliberately kept ignorant of Africa and
her achievements by European capitalism for
centuries. The purpose of such action was to
paint a picture of Africa as a savage land and
to force Africans to disassociate themselves
from their homeland. After being removed from
our homes and made into slaves we have been
afraid to admit even to ourselves that we are
AFRICANS.
Thus, we are the only group in the world who
deny ourselves, preferring to be known as
Negroes, West Indians, Jamaicans
Afro-Americans, Afro-Brazilians, African-
Americans, anything rather than AFRICANS. And
all of these names by which we define
ourselves have been forced upon us by European
enslavers who sought to rob us of any
collective identify, so that they could more
easily oppress us.
Africans born inside of Africa, while
recognizing that they are Africans, have
identified with the state or colony that they
were born in (i.e., Nigeria, Malawi, Morocco,
or Togo). This is micro-nationalism, seeing
the part as more important than the whole of
Africa. This micro-nationalism is part of the
"divide and rule" tactic which keeps Africans
attached to small countries, governments and
life styles where we were born or live rather
than identifying ourselves as one nation.
All people are identified by the land from
which they come. Land is the basis of
economic freedom for all people. From land
comes food, raw materials for making clothes,
building houses, schools, factories, and all
supplies that are needed to maintain a
society. Without land there can be no
economic freedom. Without economic freedom
there can be no independent development.
Social and Economic Problems
We are African Period. Everywhere in the
world Africans have the same social and
economic problems. They include starvation
or inadequate diet; no jobs or low paying
jobs; poor healthcare, and inferior education,
or worse yet, mis-education. Mis-education
through the schools and/or the media add to
the confusion as to who we are, whether we
should fight for Africa and our people.
Backwards thinking as a result of capitalist
indoctrination which sees money and property
as more important than people. Under these
conditions, no people can harness and meet
their full potential.
The same companies that exploit Africans in
Africa also exploit Africans in the Caribbean,
North, South, Central America and Europe.
Texaco, Exxon, Shell, Barclays Bank, Alcoa,
Ford Motor Corporation, IBM, and Nestle are
just as familiar to Africans at home in Africa
as they are to Africans living outside of
Africa.
By exploiting our labor, our minds, and the
rich resources of our homeland, the world's
greedy capitalists live a life of splendor.
By keeping us divided, disorganized,
confused and living under stifling conditions,
they try to halt our progress towards the
total freedom of Africa and our people.
"The philosophy of European capitalism in the
colonies is that colonial subjects should
labor under any foreign government, with
uncomplaining satisfaction. They are
supposedly "incapable" of developing the
resources of their own country, and are taught
to labor and appreciate European manufactured
goods, so as to become "good" customers.
- Kwame Nkrumah
European capitalists use the principle of
"divide and rule" to keep us oppressed so that
they can continue to exploit our labor and our
land. The strategy they employ is designed to
ensure that we stay confused about our
identity thus preventing us from seeing the
broader picture of oppression and exploitation
of Africans throughout the world. In order to
accomplish this, capitalism divides us in two
ways:
1. It attempts to keep us physically and
geographically separated, and
2. to control our minds through
(mis)information and propaganda.
Anti-African Propaganda
We are African Period. Africans have been
victims of centuries of anti-African
propaganda from Tarzan to Radio Free Europe
and the Voice of America (radio broadcasts
organized by the imperialists to project
negatively Africa and Africans).
The goal of capitalist propaganda is to
instill within Africans everywhere a hatred
for Africa and a love for anything European.
Propaganda is carried out through newspapers,
radio, television, films, and the educational
system.
In the Americas - the occupied land of the
Indians - a slave ship drops an African off in
Florida and drops another African off in
Jamaica - one picks cotton while another cuts
sugar cane. Both are victims of capitalism
and both think they have more in common with
Europeans than with each other.
An African colonized by the French is led to
believe they are French. An African colonized
by the British is led to think they have more
in common with the "Queen" than they do with
their African sisters and brothers. This is
confusion - confusion created and maintained
by the enemy - capitalist imperialism. No
oppressed person can have the same interest as
their oppressor. The imperialist's anti-
African propaganda is aimed at achieving
three things:
1. To make Africans think that the interest
of the oppressed is the same as the interest
of the oppressor - to create the unnatural
conditions where Africans actually work
against their own interest.
2. To keep Africans divided and
disorganized. African people are more than
900 million strong and if organized the
effects of racism would be destroyed. Racism
is meaningless against an organized people.
An example, are the Chinese - racist feelings
towards them by the West are moot because
there is nothing the imperialists can do
against 1 billion organized people.
3. To maintain control of the African
continent with its vast resources which made
capitalist development possible. The unity
of all African people and a unified Africa
will be the biggest blow to the maintenance
of imperialist power in the world.
The Struggle Continues
"The determined and conscious resistance to
penetration and foreign domination, we have
seen, is a constant feature in the drive for
the assertion and preservation of African
people. The people possess a rich tradition
of fighting, of armed opposition and of socio-
cultural resistance to colonial rule...
domination has never been accepted..."
- Ahmed Sekou Ture
We are African Period. We know this
instinctively, for example, when we see
Africans in Azania/South Africa being attacked
we get angry; when we see Africans suffering
in Ethiopia - we feel their pain; when we see
Africans addicted to crack in Harlem - we know
these are our people. Unfortunately,
instincts only lead us to reaction, to
spontaneous rebellion, it will not lead to a
solution.
In the 1980's Africans had riots in Braxton,
England, and Miami, Florida, against police
brutality and in Azania/South Africa we had
major uprisings. African youths with sticks
and stones battled South African troops in
the streets.
Combined Angolan, Cuban, and SWAPO forces
handed South Africa a crushing defeat in
southern Angola. Led by SWAPO, the Namibian
people have liberated their territory from
South Africa.
While these courageous events remind our
people that we can never be defeated, African
people continue to suffer everywhere. The
primary problem is that our struggle is not
coordinated, while our enemy works in concert
against us.
"A new phase of the African Revolution has
been reached. This revolution must overcome
and triumph over imperialism, racialism and
neo-colonialism. It must finally usher in the
total emancipation and the political
unification of out continent. Africa must be
United."
- Kwame Nkrumah
While 50% of Africans in the USA live on or
under the poverty line. $8 billion is sent to
Israel; which is used to oppress the
Palestinian people. The Western imperialists,
led by the USA, Funnel money and military
weapons through Israel to South Africa to
slaughter our children. Imperialism operates
on a global perspective. Secret agencies of
Britain, France, Israel, South Africa, USA
conduct joint military action against Africans
- acts such as the invasion of Grenada a
country of 110,000 African people or the
bombing of Libya a state in northern Africa.
No small group of Africans can defeat
imperialism, no matter how good their
intentions. Only the working, struggling
African masses can do it. But to do so, we
must be organized and bound together by a
common goal and guided by correct ideas. In
other words, the masses must be correctly
organized!
Necessity of Organization
Organization is necessary because without
organization there is no way to channel all
the energies of all the people who want to
work for our betterment and improvement.
Organization is necessary because without it
we leave ourselves open to the oppressor's
tactic of "divide and rule." Organization is
necessary to ensure that we as a people
respond quickly when the situation dictates
it.
Organization is necessary because oppressed
people have never defeated the enemy
(oppression) without it. If our problems
were temporary then our solution could also
be temporary; but our problem is on-going and
in order to solve it once and for all we must
have a permanent on-going solution.
Pan-Africanism is the only solution for
Africans scattered and suffering
worldwide.
The Solution
The solution to our problem as a people is
Pan-Africanism - The Total Liberation and
Unification of Africa under Scientific
Socialism. As Kwame Nkrumah said:
"It is an objective which, when achieved, will
bring about the fulfillment of the aspirations
of Africans and people of African descent
everywhere. It will at the same time advance
the triumph of the international socialist
revolution..."
Pan-Africanism solves the problem of micro-
nationalism; which prevents us from seeing
beyond the boundaries of the islands or
countries in which we were born. It lets us
see Africa as our nation - a nation that is
abundantly rich in resources which can be
harnessed for the suffering African masses
scattered throughout the world. With a
liberated, unified and socialist Africa,
poverty, the lack of housing, inadequate diet,
poor healthcare and irrelevant education
become things of the past.
All Africans will work, produce and receive
the things that are needed to survive and
develop. There will be no more privileged
few while the masses suffer. This also means
an African society with no exploitation.
Women, the same as men, will work to
reconstruct our societies. The purpose of
production will be the improvement of the
quality of life for all - unlike under
capitalism where production is for
maximization of profit for the few at the
expense of the masses.
The Need for Ideology
Pan-Africanism is not an objective that can
be achieved by simply snapping one's fingers.
To achieve Pan-Africanism, we must be
organized and guided by an ideology, a system
of thoughts, beliefs, and values which helps
us to view the world properly and directs us
toward our goal. Through ideology, we learn
how to organize our society and our very
lives. This ideology is Nkrumahism-Tureism,
named after Presidents Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed
Seku Ture.
Nkrumahism-Tureism is the only correct and
scientific ideology for the African
Revolution. Nkrumahism-Tureism takes it name
from the consistent, principles, practices,
and policies followed, implemented and taught
by Kwame Nkrumah and Ahmed Seku Ture. This
ideology is articulated in their speeches,
writings, actions, achievements and life.
Nkrumahism-Tureism provides Africans with a
set of uncompromising principles, a
scientific, revolutionary view of Africa and
the world. It also gives Africans a
scientific methodology and a set of analytical
tools which will enable the masses of African
people to correctly interpret, understand,
redeem and reconstruct Africa.
The A-APRP
As ideology alone is not sufficient. We must
have an organization as a vehicle through
which our ideology can be put into practice,
hence the All-African People's Revolutionary
Party (A-APRP). At the moment we are a small
but growing organization seeking to organize
the 900 million Africans throughout the world
into one organization in order to struggle for
Pan-Africanism. As an independent, mass
political Party, we want to organize Africans
into the A-APRP.
We also have a Women's wing inside our Party,
the All-African Women's Revolutionary Union
(A-AWRU), who's chief goal is to educate and
organize the whole Party around women's
emancipation from sexism.
Membership in the A-APRP is open to all
Africans who understand and accept the Party's
ideology (Nkrumahism-Tureism), and its
objective (Pan-Africanism). Members must
undergo a rigorous process of political
education, requiring members to:
1. Attend and successfully complete the
Orientation process.
2. Join and help build a Work/Study Circle
and implement the A-APRP's ideological
Training Guidelines.
We urge everyone to join a political
organization seeking to advance the African
Revolution. If you are already in an
organization we urge you to work to heighten
the level of political education inside your
organization and advance the unification and
liberation of Africa.
Conclusion
The identity question is a critical one. The
imperialists understand this. Whenever and
wherever imperialist powers go they attempt to
destroy the national identity of occupied
peoples. This is to give the illusion that
the people and the land they occupy never
existed.
We would like to suggest that you join the
All-African People's Revolutionary Party. We
invite you to join and help build the A-APRP.
Yes, it is time we drop the hyphenated
identity and come to identity ourselves as
AFRICANS PERIOD!
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