Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, outside the American Axle plant gate during the UAW strike. This photo was taken on Sunday, March 16, 2008. (Photo: Alan Pollock).
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Government responsible for gross violations against African Americans, oppressed
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
A United Nations Human Rights Council gathering in Switzerland heard
testimony from oppressed groups inside the United States who are
exposing the gross violations against peoples of color and workers in
general which are carried out as official state policy. Despite its
criticism of other states, particularly in the developing regions of
the world, the U.S. ruling class is continuing to pursue racism,
national and gender oppression in efforts to maintain dominance over
the majority of people both inside and outside its borders.
Numerous African American and left movements have a history of
addressing international bodies in regard to oppression and
exploitation. These efforts emanate from the long struggle to end
racism, national oppression and all forms of inequality and
discrimination.
Going back to Marcus Garvey and his appeals on behalf of African
people to the League of Nations, to the Civil Rights Congress of the
1940s and 1950s, when Paul Robeson, W.E.B. DuBois and William L.
Patterson presented a document to the United Nations in 1951 entitled
"We Charge Genocide," to the efforts of Malcolm X to bring the U.S.
imperialists before the U.N. in 1964-65, the most advanced sectors of
the oppressed have recognized that the struggle for liberation and
self-determination must be approached on an international level.
During the Bush administration, the U.S. had refused to participate in
the UNHRC saying that it did not agree with the policies of
governments, most of whom were in the developing regions, and would
not be subject to questioning by such states.
At present the UNHCR is comprised of representatives from China, Cuba, Libya and Saudi Arabia. All of these states are viewed with suspicion and hostility by the U.S. government and ruling class.
Nonetheless, the Obama administration has agreed to participate in the international body and attended the meeting in Geneva during early November. Testimony from organizations based inside the U.S. reported that the government engages in blatant discrimination against Muslims and other oppressed communities of color.
Additional reports from civil rights and human rights organizations
revealed that police engage in brutal attacks in urban communities and
that there are numerous political prisoners who have been locked-up
inside the country's prisons for decades. The United States has the
largest per capita prison population in the world.
In response to the further exposure of the oppression and exploitation
of people inside the U.S., right-wing media outlets are attacking the
Obama administration for agreeing to attend the Geneva meeting.
Although the current administration has maintained the Pentagon's wars of occupation and terror against various countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America--including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Colombia, Palestine and Cuba--the ruling class does not want their crimes against humanity exposed and discussed in an international forum.
In a recent FoxNews article written by George Russell, he says of the
Geneva hearings that they represent a "gamble by the Obama
administration to join the council in the first place, rather than
shun it in disdain as the Bush administration did, along with its
predecessor the U.N. Human Rights Commission, because of its roster of despotic members and unbridled antagonism toward Israel. (FoxNews.com, Nov. 4)
Russell continues by condemning the previously held World Conference Against Racism in 2001 and the follow-up meeting in Geneva in 2009 after the Obama administration took power.
Obama refused to participate in the 2009 Durban Review gathering under the guise of opposing anti-semitism, which is a slander used against any organization or state that criticizes U.S. policy toward Israel and the atrocities committed by the Zionist state against the Palestinians and other Arab nations in the region.
The FoxNews journalist characterized the World Conference Against
Racism gatherings as turning "into orgies of anti-Israel posturing and
helped to lead to the previous U.N. Human Rights Commission crackup."
Yet despite what the U.S. administration thinks about the legitimate
struggle of the Palestinians for self-determination and nationhood,
there is still a compelling case for the imperialist state to address
such a meeting based upon the history and legacy of slavery, national
oppression and state-directed violence against Native, African and
Latin American peoples among others, inside its own borders.
Another critic of the UNHCR and the WCAR is Jim Kelly, who is the
director of international affairs for the Federalist Society for Law
and Public Policy Studies. Kelly claims that there is no need for
oppressed peoples inside the U.S. to speak before or appeal to such
world bodies because the rights they are calling for are already
guaranteed under the Constitution.
"The fact is, they are demanding that the U.S. comply with rights that
are already addressed by our own democratic system and laws. They are simply trying to get us to adopt U.N. standards instead of our own.
It's not as if by our particpating in the human rights process Cuba is
going to clean up its act," Kelly said. (FoxNews.com, Nov. 4)
However, these conservative commentators refuse to ask the question
that if the U.S. is a democratic state then why does the overwhelming
majority within the people of color communities still say that there
is institutionalized racism? Why is democracy defined only by
elections held every 2-4 years where the two main parties that
dominate the political system represent the ruling class?
Why are there no real debates within the corporate media or
referendums held among the people that determine policy related to the aspirations and needs of the working class and the oppressed? Issues of war and peace, the need for full employment and a living wage, universal healthcare, quality education, the elimination of racism, sexism, LGBTQ oppression, the rights of the disabled, children and seniors, the preservation of the environment and growing food
deficits are not subjected to the democratic process in the U.S.
In socialist countries like Cuba, all citizens are guaranteed the
right to education, housing, employment and health care. Under
socialism official state policy is committed to ending racism and
gender oppression. The elimination of social classes and the right to
self-determination for the oppressed are enshrined in the political
culture and framework of a socialist society.
As the founder of the Russian Revolution and the Union Soviet
Socialist Republics (USSR), V.I. Lenin, stated as early as 1920 that
"Under the guise of the equality of the individual in general,
bourgeois democracy proclaims the formal or legal equality of the
property-owner and the proletarian, the exploiter and the exploited,
thereby grossly deceiving the oppressed classes. On the plea that all
men (and women) are absolutely equal, the bourgeoisie is transforming
the idea of equality, which is itself a reflection of relations in
commodity production, into a weapon in its struggle against the
abolition of classes. The real meaning of the demand for equality
consists in its being a demand for the abolition of classes." (Draft
Theses on National and Colonial Questions, 1920)
Demands Illustrate the Need for Organized Struggle
Highlighting the actual conditions inside the United States involving
the workers and oppressed draws attention to the need for
organizations that speak directly to the tens of millions that are
subjected to racism, exploitation and bigotry. These rights can only
be won when the fundamental structures of capitalist society are
uprooted and replaced by socialism.
Participants in the UNHCR meeting in Geneva, which includes
representatives of the U.S. Human Rights Network, that encompasses
organizations such as the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, the Black
Workers for Justice, the National Conference of Black Lawyers and
others, have made demands on U.S. imperialism to adhere to
international norms related to non-discrimination and the right to
self-determination. In the short-term the representatives of the
oppressed workers in Geneva are insisting that the U.S. acknowledge
its unjust policies and adopt resolutions in support of the
downtrodden and the exploited.
The progressive forces in Geneva demanded that the U.S. implement a number of conventions related to ending discrimination. They are also saying that these conventions shoud be "self-executing," indicating that no action by the ruling class in the U.S. is needed in order for their enactment to take place.
One submission rightly notes that "U.S. social conditions are dismal
and that 30 percent of the population "lacks an adequate income to
meet basic needs." Another submission reports that "there is an
unequal access in the U.S. to basic amenities such as adequate food,
shelter, work, healthcare and education. There is also a lack of
affordable housing, job shortages and income insecurity, particulary
among minorities and women." (FoxNews.com, Nov. 4)
The continued oppression and exploitation of the working class in the
United States requires a protracted struggle to overcome. If the
affected groups unite in a program of action aimed at winning economic security, the end to imperialist wars, the elimination of racism, sexism and all forms of inequality, the force of such a movement can effectively change the political landscape of the U.S. and the social relations of the people residing inside the country to other workers and oppressed peoples around the world.
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