[Ms. Shakur’s statement came to us from the
NYC Jericho
Movement]
First of all, let me say thank you, to the many
people who have helped me celebrate my 60th birthday. Thank
you for your beautiful birthday cards and for your warm and
eloquent messages. Thank you for your activism, your radiant
energy and most of all for your love. I am sincerely grateful
for your support and for your commitment to social justice,
truth and freedom.
It is somehow surprising for me to realize that
I have lived on this planet for 60 years. I never imagined that
I would live this long. Some of those years were very hard years,
other years were happier, but I have never forgotten who I am
or where I came from. For as long as I can remember, I was acutely
aware of my oppression and of the oppression of my people.
In some ways it was easier for my generation.
Racism was blatant and obvious. The “Whites Only” signs let
us know clearly, what we were up against. Not much has changed,
but the system of lies and tricknology is much more sophisticated.
Today young people have to be highly informed and acutely analytical,
or they will be swept up into a whirlpool of lies and deception.
Freedom, justice and liberty are words that are
thrown around a lot in the United States, but for most of us,
it is empty rhetoric. With each and every passing day the country
becomes more repressive, the police more viciously aggressive
and the so-called constitutional guarantees obliterated by scare
tactics. The so-called “Conservatives” are only interested in
conserving their privileges and power and helping their rich
friends to become richer. Black “Conservatives” serve their
“masters” and are basically interested in grinning, shuffling
and “Uncle Tomming” all the way to the bank. This is the most
corrupt administration that has ever existed. They have blatantly
stolen not millions, but billions of dollars. They are actively
seeking to preserve the old colonial order with a new face,
where the oppressed people of Asia, Africa, Latin America and
the Middle East are expected to suffer happily, and sing praises
to imperialism to the tune of the star spangled banner.
It is extreme arrogance to attack and occupy
a country and expect its people to rejoice and lick your feet.
Not even Roman Emperors were involved in such misguided conceit.
The U.S. government has no right whatsoever, to force its undemocratic
“democracy” on the rest of the world. I am 60 years old and
I cannot remember a time when my people ever experienced true
democracy. It is still the active policy of the U.S. government
to use a wide variety of tactics to prevent poor people and
people of color from voting. And when we do get to vote, our
votes usually do not count. For the most part, there are no
decent candidates to vote for, because the U.S, government is
a “dollarocracy” where candidates have to beg and pander to
the corporate rich in order to be elected.
I am 60 years old, and I have never in my life
seen such widespread violence and cruelty. The U.S. government
has more people in prison than any other country in the world,
and it is now actively involved in creating prisons all over
the world. Abu Gharib is only the tip of the iceberg. People
all over the world are being imprisoned in secret prisons, with
no formal charges being made against them. They are imprisoned
under the most inhumane conditions, and detained for indeterminate
periods of time, with no rights, no trials, and no justice whatsoever.
In short, the leaders of this country are war criminals. All
the
U.S. government has to do is call them terrorists or extremists,
enemy combatants or whatever and they can do anything they want
to these people. I live in Cuba, and the Cuban people watch
horrified, as the U.S. Army illegally occupies their land in
Guantanamo and commits unspeakable acts of torture on their
soil, in the name of “freedom.” The U.S. government not only
destroys the lives of people around the world, many mothers
have cried because many of our young people have had their lives
destroyed as well. I believe that this earth was meant for tenderness
and not terror. The imperialist countries not only implement
terrorist policies in the Third World, their actions also provoke
terrorist activities and internal disputes between people. I
believe that when Western governments learn to respect the sovereignty
of Third world governments, and to offer solidarity and support
rather that imperialist policies and exploitation, most of the
world’s problems will be close to being solved.
Inside the belly of the beast, conditions are
also disastrous. Most of the victims of Katrina are still waiting
for decent housing and public services. Schools and hospitals
around the country are either deteriorating or closing down.
Around the country social programs to help poor and working
people are mostly a thing of the past. Our young people are
being marginalized, criminalized and brutalized. It is often
an act of courage to go to school, or simply drive down the
street. The U.S. government’s occupation of Afghanistan has
produced a record increase of heroin production, and the “war
on drugs” continues to be a war on poor people and people of
color. The police brutality in our communities is not a simple
matter of randomly “bad” cops. This government is more repressive
than ever and more and more of a police state. When you have
a trigger happy president, a trigger happy vice-president, a
trigger happy office of homeland security, you are bound to
have an increase of trigger happy police and many of our young
people are bound to end up dead or imprisoned. The social policies
of the United States have deteriorated from so-called benign
neglect to malignant hostility or indifference.
The role the press and the media have played
in all this has been increasingly malignant. There is no such
thing as a free press in the United States. Journalists receive
big salaries for telling “official” lies. The media both knowingly
and naively became the vehicle for misinforming the people of
the United States and convincing the people that it was “necessary”
to go to war. Their “reporting” was based on outright lies.
Now they “embedded” in the military, continuing to misinform
the people, and distort the truth.
I am 60 years old and I am proud to be one of
those people who stood up against the ruthless, evil, imperialist
policies of the U.S. government. In my lifetime I have opposed
the war against the Vietnamese people, the illegal contras war
in Nicaragua, the illegal coup in Chile, the invasion of Haiti
and of Grenada, and every other illegal, immoral and genocidal
war the U.S. government has ever waged. I have never been a
criminal and I never will be one. I am 60 years old and in spite
of government repression, in spite of the media’s lies and distortions,
in spite of the U.S, government’s COINTELPRO Program to criminalize
and demonize political opponents, I feel proud to count myself
as someone who believes in peace and believes in freedom. I
am proud to have been a member of the Black Panther Party although
the U.S. government continues try to distort history and continues
to persecute ex-members of the Black Panther Party. Just recently,
the U.S. government has indicted and arrested 8 ex-Black Panthers
in a case that was dismissed 30 years ago. The case was dismissed
some 30 years ago when it became obvious that the most vicious
forms of extreme torture were used to extract false confessions
from some of the so-called defendants.
I am 60 years and it is doubtful that I will
ever live to see my people free of oppression and repression.
But I am totally convinced that our collective dream of freedom
will some day be realized. I sincerely implore young people
to develop their minds, to develop their skills, to expand their
states of consciousness, and sharpen their abilities to analyze
reality. Those Africans who conspired with the European slave
trade to sell us into slavery were seduced by trinkets. I hope
and pray that our young people will not continue to fall into
the same traps. I have always loved my people and always loved
our culture. The culture of my people has always been rich and
always been filled with the seeds of resistance. I hope that
young people hold fast to that tradition. I sincerely hope that
all young people will have the courage and the wisdom to hold
on tight to their humanity and their historical mission. Most
people in the Americas were either indigenous people whose ancestors
were victims of genocide, or brought to this hemisphere as slaves,
or came to this continent seeking freedom. I believe that it
is our collective duty to make freedom a reality. I truly believe
that it is possible to end oppression and repression on this
planet. If we all see ourselves as citizens of this planet,
and citizens of the world, it will be easier for us to save
this planet and recognize the human rights of human beings around
the world.
Much love, Much Solidarity,
May we all make freedom a reality,
Assata Shakur
BlackCommentator.com Guest
Commentator, Assata ("she who
struggles") Shakur ("the thankful one"), is a life-long activist
and advocate for revolutionary changes, living in Cuba. Learn
more of Assata Shakur, aka JoAnne Chesimard at assatashakur.org.
Click
here to reach Ms. Shakur via the NYC Jericho Movement.