Al Fateh Resists White and Arab Supremacists: Imperialism will be buried in Africa
The North Atlantic tribes, under the banner of NATO, and their Arab flunkies are lining up for a showdown in Sirte. Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolutionary forces remain defiant and have issued statements saying that they will never surrender. Their extraordinary resistance has most certainly earned them a place in the history of modern warfare. Nowhere in modern history have an army of 100,000 and a population of 6.5 million been able to resist such an overwhelming and murderous invasion for so long. As I write NATO’s forces have surrounded the small desert town of Bani Walid. Talks between the rebels and residents of the town have broken down and the people of Al-Fateh have decided to stand and fight against all odds.
UN Resolution 1973 which authorized a ‘no fly zone’ was, without regard for international law, which is not difficult since there is no international law, immediately turned into a regime change operation. Under the pretext of protecting civilians, NATO has murdered thousands of Libyans and other African civilians and now, as I write, they have surrounded the people of the small desert town of Bani Walid to commit more murder. This war, under the banner of the UN, has once and for all exposed this organization’s fraudulent and criminal nature. On the one hand they have declared 2011 as the ‘International Year of People of African Descent’. It is more aptly designated as the ‘International Year for the Destruction of Africa’.
Many in Libya, stunned after the fall of Tripoli, and the sheer criminality and barbarism of this invasion, are only now regrouping and switching to guerilla war mode. There is no choice. Even if Qaddafi were to leave Libya or be killed, this battle would continue because it is about much more than one man, Muammar Qaddafi and the Libyan nation. The ideas of Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolution are not restricted to the geographical space known as Libya. The ideology of the Third Universal Theory, as outlined in The Green Book, and the vision of a United States of Africa has taken deep root in Africa and throughout the world. In fact, this attack on Libya and Africa has only served to re-energize and galvanize revolutionary Pan-African forces and other revolutionary movements worldwide.
The imperialists reckoned that this invasion, which was planned months ahead and launched in February this year, would be over by March – a walk in the park so to speak. They needed it to be swift for a number of reasons. Africa was on the brink of adopting Qaddafi’s idea of a single currency in the form of an African gold dinar. This would have replaced European currencies as the preferred trading currency for Africa’s resources including its vast oil and gold reserves.
In addition, Qaddafi had amassed the necessary funds for the establishment of three African Banks – the African Monetary Fund (AMF) to be situated in Cameroon, The Central African Bank to be situated in Nigeria and the African Investment Bank to be established in Libya. It was this move, more than even Libya’s vast oil wealth that made Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolution a target for this invasion. Africa was on the brink of a huge and empowering breakthrough, which, as far as the Western capitals were concerned, had to be prevented at any cost.
‘The Babylon system is a vampire, sucking the blood of the sufferer…’
Bob Marley
On top of all this, the US and Europe are in deep economic crisis. They cannot afford to be engaged in yet another costly and prolonged war. They have frantically introduced bail outs to hold back the inevitable collapse of capitalism over the past years, however, these measures were only a stop gap and they are now running out of time and ideas. Certainly, a carve-up of Libya’s vast oil wealth as soon as possible is an attractive prospect, and the removal of revolutionary Libya as an obstacle to the West’s re-colonization of the African continent has also become a priority, since the continued plunder of African and ‘Third World’ resources remains a non-negotiable ingredient for global capitalism’s survival.
The fact is that the contemporary global political economy could not have come into being without the North Atlantic Tribes plunder of African resources and trade in captured Africans over the past centuries. The unpaid labor of captured Africans laid the foundation for the material basis of capitalist development. I have outlined in previous articles the extent of Africa’s resources and the necessity of unhindered access to them if the Western capitals are to continue on their current path of world domination. Qaddafi was an obstacle to this and therefore has to be crushed at any cost.
‘Imperialism will be buried in Africa’
When the leaders of the North Atlantic Tribes, assisted by what Webster Tarpley has referred to as the ‘rebel rabble’ in Benghazi, staged an incident in February 2011 as a pretext for a full scale invasion, they did not envisage that this war would still be raging in September, and that seven months on, NATO, the most sophisticated military machine known to humankind, could have been prevented by an army of 100,000 and a population of 6.5 million people from securing full control of Libya. The command structure and organization of the Al Fateh revolutionary forces remains intact and they are not surrendering. Regardless of the outcome of NATO’s invasion, this promises to be a protracted battle. Sooner or later, NATO will be defeated, and as the great Pan-African leader, Sekou Toure predicted, “Imperialism will be buried in Africa”.
This war will inevitably spill over into other parts of Africa such as Chad, Niger and Mali. Over the years, thousands of fighters from liberation movements in these countries benefited from the support of the Al Fateh revolution.
The situation is a complex one. For example, in 2009 in Chad, an armed movement almost succeeded in toppling President Idris Deby, who was only saved because the French stepped in and bombed rebel positions. Deby, on the orders of the French, has now recognized the National Transitional Council (NTC) or Council of Shame, as they are referred to in Libya. This is the same Deby who received assistance from Qaddafi in the war of liberation he and others waged against the French surrogate, Hisne Habre in the 80s and 90s. Qaddafi assisted Deby in his war of liberation and many years later, was also able to mediate between Deby and the Union of Resistance Forces that almost toppled Deby. The point is that Qaddafi’s influence and long history in Africa is complex. Liberation movements throughout the continent look to him as a source of strength and revolutionary guidance, and in many cases he has relationships with Heads of State and the forces that oppose them. That is why he is called upon to mediate in many conflicts in Africa because he is respected and listened to by all sides.
Africa’s political and social reality is an extremely complex and difficult one. As in Iraq, the West is now mired in a prolonged and age old battle of which they have little understanding, and as Frederick Douglas warned: “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”. Once again they have launched a war that has opened a can of worms and that will inevitably reach deep into the recesses of ancient issues and conflicts – right back in fact into the earliest Arab incursions into North Africa.
The war in Libya is being fought on many realms – religious, ideological, racial and tribal. Throw into this mix a long and painful history of Western colonialism, domination, deception and destruction, colonial borders drawn up separating tribes and nations, and the resulting web of intertwined and complex political deals and compromises up and down the continent, in the midst of the chaos and mistrust caused by Africa’s plight and you have an explosive situation for which there is no quick fix or swift outcome.
Beyond their plans to subjugate and plunder, NATO has little concern about the outcome for Libya and Africa. Even with the battle raging and no one side able to declare full control of the entire country, the imperialists and their Arab and African flunkies met in Paris to carve up Libya’s wealth, in a disgusting display of the greed that drives them. Merkel, who had not supported the invasion snuck in, tail between her legs, to beg for a slice of the pie and Russia hurried to recognize the NTC in order to get at least a piece of the action.
The Nature of the Beast
There are many lessons here for any nation-state who thinks that they can perform a balancing act between seeking their right to self-determination and establishing détente with the West. At an international conference hosted by the World Mathaba in Tripoli many years ago, in reference to Africa’s battle with the West, the Hon Minister Louis Farrakhan warned us, “that we are dealing with the beast and you cannot appeal to the beast, since the beast has no heart and no ability to reason”. Libya had tried to do just that – reason with the beast. Qaddafi had set out to bury all hostilities with the West in order to focus on Libya’s national development which had suffered after almost a decade of unjust sanctions. No one understands more than Qaddafi how constant conflict with the West can hinder a nation from realizing its revolutionary goals and objectives. He needed to get the sanctions off Libya’s back in order to proceed with not only Libya’s national development but also to raise the huge amount of capital needed to back the Pan-African project.
Qaddafi even voluntarily gave up his program for the development of nuclear weapons and urged all other countries, including Russia and the US, to do the same. Saif Qaddafi, in a recent interview, has admitted that there are many Libyans who blame him for this invasion, claiming that his ideas of tolerance and relationship building with the West were naïve and dangerous. It seems that some in Libya were so convinced that they had entered into a new phase of détente with the West, that even Libya’s military was not upgraded as it should have been. The money was instead earmarked for development projects in Libya and throughout Africa.
We have all seen the footage flashed across our TV screens of Qaddafi being embraced by Blair, Berlusconi, Sarkozy etc. In the African and Arab traditions, a person’s handshake and word counts for something. Qaddafi clearly did not understand the nature of this beast. After all, unlike the Africans in America and other parts of the Diaspora, his contact with them has been limited. It is no accident that the greatest exploration of White supremacy and the bizarre psychology that underlies it is best articulated by the Afrocentric scholars in the US. Where better to understand the Beast than from its very belly? For a scholarly and insightful account of what drives White supremacy and their continued blood thirsty domination of this planet, one should refer to the works of Drs Bobby E. Wright, Frances Cress Welsing and Marimba Ani among others.
For his part, Saif himself has said that he accepts the criticism and agrees that his approach was naïve. It was he who pushed for the release of many former Al Qaeda operatives from prison, in a move consistent with the idea of restorative justice. They were released with the understanding that they would air their ideological differences not through violent means, but through the democratic institutions set up for political deliberation in Libya – the People’s Committees and People’s Congresses. This was an attempt to reintegrate these Libyans, known as the ‘returnees’ or ‘Afghanis’, back into Libyan society. One of those released, Abdelhakim Belhaj, has now been appointed by the NTC as Tripoli’s new security chief. Belhaj is one of Al Qaeda’s top military commanders, sent back to Libya from Afghanistan by the US.
‘In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends’
Dr Martin Luther King
Although many worldwide have come out clearly in support of Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolution, one of the hardest things to bear over the past months has been to watch some cower in the face of this imperialist onslaught, either by ‘jumping ship’ or remaining silent. Betrayal is always hard to bear, but especially because it highlights one of the reasons why the imperialists are able to knock us off, one at a time.
Some progressive and revolutionary movements have failed to openly defend the shared goals and objectives they agreed to as members of the World Mathaba. In doing so, they have allowed Libya to be singled out for punishment and destruction by imperialist forces. They were happy to receive whatever assistance they could get, but remain shamefully silent when Libya needs defending. There is an African saying in the Caribbean – “ingratitude is worse than witchcraft”.
The Palestinian organizations are a tragic example. During the long years of the Palestinian struggle, every faction of the PLO had an office in Tripoli, from the pro-Syrian Al Saiqa to the Marxist oriented Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and every group in between. To date, not one of these organizations have raised their voice against this invasion of Libya, despite accepting millions of dollars of assistance when their backs were up against the wall. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, without even knowing what was happening on the ground in Libya, jumped the gun with an opportunistic condemnation of the Al Fateh revolution, while failing to utter a word on what is taking place in Syria.
Muammar Qaddafi’s revolutionary politics is grounded in the Islamic injunction, that “one must want for others what one wants for oneself”. He therefore saw it as the duty of liberated zones to extend assistance to all those struggling for freedom and self-determination. During the past forty-two years, the Al Fateh revolution never compromised this principle, even when changing conditions and situations both at the regional and global level, forced Libya to adapt its strategies and tactics. Despite the immense pressure put on this small nation-state, Al Fateh helped all.
What set the World Mathaba aside from other revolutionary and progressive internationals was that it neither restricted its membership to a particular ideological orientation nor limited its assistance to a specific region or to movements and organizations that were of geo-political significance to Libya. As a result, the World Mathaba brought together forces spanning the entire progressive ideological spectrum, including Indigenous movements throughout the world, assisting all of them in their struggles, without demanding any adherence to the precepts of the Libyan revolution.
This truly pluralist outlook was proof that assistance provided by Libya transcended Libya’s national interest, and was given in accordance with what Qaddafi truly believed to be their duty before God. The gains made by many members as a direct result of the assistance they received from the World Mathaba, and the potential for future victories, shaped the extreme hostility of imperialist forces and their desperate actions against Libya over the years to this sad day, when they have been forced to pay the ultimate price.
While the AU has refused to officially recognize the NTC, it is tragic that 20 African governments could have been pressured into accepting the NTC as the legitimate government in Libya, even while there is still fierce resistance being waged against NATO and the NTC throughout the country.
This, after all Qaddafi and Libya has done for Africa, and knowing that the NTC are declared Arab supremacists, who under NATO’s cover have hunted down and murdered thousands of Black Libyans and African migrant workers.
These African governments must be aware that Libya’s ex-Minister of Justice, Mustafa Jalil, leader of the Transitional Council, and other Libyan officials who have defected to the rebels, were among those who condoned brutal attacks on Africans in a series of incidents a few years ago, when Nigerians and Ghanaians were being attacked in the streets of Tripoli. This was an attempt to embarrass Qaddafi and tarnish his Pan-African credentials, thereby undermining Libya’s Pan-African project.
Jalil is known by revolutionary and progressive organizations throughout Africa as a racist. His so-called Transitional National Council, in accordance with their Arab supremacist mindset, rejects Libya’s African identity. It is bewildering and unfathomable to me that African leaders could have gone to the Imperialist Carve-up Conference in Paris and sat in a room with White and Arab supremacists while they plotted the looting of Libya now and inevitably, the re-colonization of Africa – one nation-state at a time. But what else can we expect from these neo-colonial flunkies?
In a recent article, African commentator, Reason Wafawarova observed with disgust:
Al Fateh will never die: Don’t mourn – Organize
This September, revolutionary and progressive forces worldwide salute the astounding achievements and victories of the Al Fateh revolution and the historical and unprecedented resistance of the Libyan revolutionary forces in confronting NATO’s killing machine. While it is necessary to identify the traitors and the unprincipled amongst us so that we know them for future reference, it is important not to lose sight of the incredible resistance that has formed itself into a cohesive global movement in the space of a few months. The revolutionary governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Zimbabwe have been in the vanguard of a global movement of the courageous and steadfast. From governments to progressive and revolutionary organizations and individuals, there has been a resounding resistance and an outpouring of solidarity and support for Muammar Qaddafi, the courageous Libyan armed forces, including the popular militias, and the Libyan people.
We say to hell with the Transitional National Council – known as the Council of Shame. Imagine you have invited the enemies of Africa, Islam and oppressed humanity into Libya, and now, hiding behind NATO’s bombs, you dare to challenge Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolutionary leadership to a final showdown in Sirte. What you have done will come back to haunt you.
The look on the faces of people in Tripoli tells its own story. Libyans walked to this year’s Eid prayers in stony silence, stunned by the new and bizarre reality of the occupation of their land by NATO and Al Qaeda terrorists.
Lyse Doucet of the BBC, finally, after seven long months, gave a moment’s interview to a Qaddafi supporter. He was standing in a clinic in the Bousalim district of Tripoli, surrounded by debris. Bousalim suffered heavy NATO air strikes since it is a well known Qaddafi stronghold. Many civilians lost their lives. The man told Lyse Doucet that the whole of Bousalim supported Qaddafi. He stated that if the rebels were ushering in a democracy then why can’t Bousalim fly whatever flag they wanted. Lyse Doucet replied that the National Transitional Council had promised that there would be no revenge killings. At this point the man laughed out loud and told Doucet that his neighbours had already been rounded up and taken away. Under the banner of NATO and the United Nations, Libya has been turned into a killing field.
Blood on their Hands
The corporate media have been accessories to this invasion, and I deliberately use the word accessories, because BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera have most definitely relinquished their right to name themselves news organizations. They have in fact been contracted as ‘weapons of mass deception’, consciously collaborating with NATO to present a fictitious version of events. They have fought this war alongside NATO – ‘embedded’ (in bed with) NATO all the way. Their agitation and propaganda (agit/prop) techniques have been a major weapon in NATO’s armor and there can be no doubt that they are accomplices to the war crimes committed in Libya. They all have blood on their hands.
Al Jazeera has been the most rabid because, like BBC and CNN, they too dance to the tune of their master, the Emir of Qatar, who has championed this invasion of Libya. It is no secret that Libya is crawling with Qatari troops.
‘War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength’
George Orwell, 1984
The Psych-ops aspect of this war reached whole new levels of deception. Investigative journalist, Webster Tarpley has cited irrefutable evidence that a set of Tripoli’s Green Square was constructed in Doha and people dressed as Libyan rebels were filmed taking over Green Square. This was the fake footage zoomed into living rooms all over the world. The zone we have entered is a frightening one, however, the enemy’s Psych-ops is a lot less effective in the age of the internet. While we must note those media organizations that have been totally compromised so that their crimes can be catalogued for future reference, we must also acknowledge the huge and impressive fight back staged by truth warriors all over the globe.
The media lies have been countered with a powerful campaign on the worldwide web. Serbian hackers went to war with anti-Qaddafi sites, closing them down as quickly as they appeared. Pakistani websites carried information on the fake Green Square constructed in Doha. Rappers posted videos calling Qaddafi an African hero. Minister Louis Farrakhan’s powerful presentations are all available on the net, allowing people to tune out of the mainstream lies, and articles are everywhere detailing the truth. Independent news sources such as Pan-African Newswire, Black Agenda Report, Final Call, Modern Ghana, The Nigerian Voice, Ethiopia.org, Pravda, Mathaba News Agency, Centre for Research on Globalization, New Dawn Magazine, San Francisco Bay View and many others have been in the vanguard of providing a counter-attack to the corporate media’s campaign of lies and deception.
On this, the 42nd anniversary of the Al Fateh revolution, the International Movement of Revolutionary Committees is calling on all truth warriors to continue to mobilize and organize in whatever ways are available to you because, despite what the deceivers are saying, this battle has only just begun. Thanks again to the age of internet, Qaddafi himself was able to issue a statement recently addressing his supporters throughout the world. In it he stated:
In a recent article titled ‘Message From A Black African: Our Brother Muammar Qaddafi Treated All Equal And Now They Are After Him’, Mbarika Kazingizi has called on us to put aside any and all differences we may have and unite to defeat NATO:
“We cannot start to think about these things (our differences) now that the fight is going on. We have to ACT now. Unite the Pan-Africanists, Rastafarians, African traditional Apostles, Farrakhan’s African-American Muslims and North African Muslims, to Speak with One Voice on this issue – condemn NATO and fight back together NOW. Malcolm X followers, Black Panthers, Ni’abhingi warriors, all youths must rally together.”
As sad and bitter as we may feel at the continued attempts to murder Muammar Qaddafi, the mass murder of so many Libyans and at the destruction of Libya, this is not a time to mourn but rather a time to organize as never before, on a global level. Let us make Sekou Toure’s prediction a reality.
You can kill the man, you can exterminate the revolutionary forces, but you can’t kill an idea whose time has come…
And finally this September, we salute Muammar Qaddafi’s greatest contribution to the world – the revolutionary ideology known as The Third Universal Theory. It took a revolutionary thinker like Qaddafi, who was not conceptually incarcerated by the reductionism of Marxism and liberalism, to go beyond the parameters of European political theory.
Qaddafi discarded the false divide between religion and political science, the secular and the sacred, faith and reason, and was thereby able to articulate a paradigm that is holistic/ integralist, reflecting a total reality – an African reality. Quite simply, secular European discourse is unable to comprehend and advance ideology such as the Third Universal Theory, precisely because this ideology acknowledges the transcendental and metaphysical dimension of human civilization and existence. As such, this ideology provides us with an alternative model for social and political reconstruction and transformation, in synergy with our culture and traditions. It invites us to finally reject and move beyond the vulgar economism and materialism of the Eurocentric ideologies of Marxism and liberal capitalism, which were thrust upon Africa and the ‘Third World’ as part of the imperialist project.
Recently, a CNN reporter stopped a rebel on the road to Sirte. The man, although dressed like a rebel, spoke with an American accent and was obviously part of America’s ‘boots on the ground special forces brigade’. He was clearly astounded by the intensity of the resistance and said “I don’t know what these guys are still fighting for – they must really believe in this guy Qaddafi.”
Yes, they believe in Qaddafi and they believe in his vision. They are fighting for an idea whose time has come. They are fighting to end Western hegemony in Africa, bringing about the end of Empire and the inevitable birth of a United States of Africa. It is a vision for which they are willing to die. NATO can invade with their Arab flunkies and roll back some of Al Fateh’s material gains but they can never kill the revolutionary consciousness that has taken root. It is this consciousness and the dedication to these ideals that has enabled this small army and nation to resist NATO’s killing machine for so long, much to the amazement of the rest of the world.
Al Fateh – The Victory – Forever
Lo! We have given thee (O Muhammad) a signal victory,
Surely, We have given to you a clear Victory
Verily, We have granted thee a manifest Victory
Surah Al Fateh, Ayah: 1, Al Qu’ran
Forty-two years ago this September, a 27 year old army captain, Muammar Qaddafi, led a small group of revolutionaries, including Abdul Salam Jaloud, Mustapha Karoubi, Kweldi Hemidi and Abubakar Jaber Younis, in a bloodless coup against the corrupt regime of King Idris, ushering in what became known as the Al Fateh revolution, named after the Qu’ranic surah Al Fateh (The Victory).
And this revolution did indeed herald a victory over the repression, poverty, ignorance and backwardness that had stalked this land throughout King Idris’s nineteen year reign. In recent months, facts and figures have been provided in articles written by people from every corner of the globe, cataloging the outstanding achievements of the Al Fateh revolution. The brilliant Guyanese economist, Dr Rawle Farley, offers an in-depth account of the visionary leadership and outstanding economic achievements of this revolution in his excellent work titled, ‘Libya: The Exceptional Third World Economy’.
Suffice to say, under the leadership of this revolutionary council, Libya went from being one of the poorest nations in the world to being one of the most developed – economically, politically and morally. Libya is one of a handful of ‘Third World’ nations that can proudly claim to have actually thrown off the yoke of colonialism and neo-colonialism. They have no foreign masters. Muammar Qaddafi and the Libyan revolutionary forces dance to nobody’s tune.
It is these Free Unionist Officers, 42 years later and now in their 70s, who are being hunted down like animals by NATO and their hirelings, forced to watch their nation destroyed. It is an ugly display of the barbarism which rules this world. For revolutionaries the world over this is a particularly devastating and horrifying phase, in what is a long and protracted struggle that will take us all the way to the final conflict on this earth. However, we are not helpless, even in the face of the immense power of the North Atlantic tribes. Their continued domination of this earth is not a given. Like all Empires they will fall. We must together gather our strength, inspired by Libya’s resistance, and continue to organize and mobilize in whatever ways are available to us. As the Brother Leader said ‘we must defend from our corner’.
There can be no doubt that the Western Empire is on the verge of total collapse. The speed at which White supremacy disintegrates will directly correlate with our ability to organize international revolutionary opposition to the evil they are perpetrating in Libya and worldwide. If history has taught us anything then it has taught us that the strength of White supremacy lies in its ability to unite across class, nation-state and ideologies when it comes to furthering their sinister agenda. Tony Blair from Britain’s Labour Party had no difficulty uniting with George Bush from the US Republican Party to attack Iraq, though the two ostensibly adhere to different political ideologies. It has been so for centuries. Despite the fact that the Dutch, French, Spanish and English were actually at war with each other in Europe, they were able to fully unite when it came to putting down the uprisings and revolutions of captured Africans on their plantations in the Caribbean.
Let us now take heed of the Brother Leader’s message and unite and organize once and for all to realize our objective – to deal a final and decisive blow to imperialism and neo-colonialism. Let us put aside our differences in order to deal with the primary contradictions that we face. The power of the people united is not a cliché or an empty slogan – it is ours – if only we can make the psychological transition necessary to possess the power.
We can be sure that long after the likes of Obama, Cameron, Sarkozy and Jalil are forgotten, the history books will still tell the story of the courageous Bedouin, who stood up for all of oppressed humanity, and in the year 2011 was targeted for extermination by one of the most powerful and barbaric ‘Coalition of Demons’ in human history. If freedom fighters all over the world stand up with him as he and his noble forces resist, dealing NATO a decisive blow in Africa, such an historic event will be remembered for all time. We are the makers of history – the power is in our hands.
This September we say to you Brother Leader – May Allah be with you and protect you and know that the revolutionary gains and the ideology of the Al Fateh revolution will live forever!
Tutashinda
By Gerald A. Perreira
5 September 2011
Gerald A. Perreira is a founding member of the Guyanese organizations, Joint Initiative for Human Advancement and Dignity and Black Consciousness Movement Guyana (BCMG). He lived in Libya for many years, served in the Green March, an international battalion for the defense of the Al Fateh revolution and was an executive member of the World Mathaba based in Tripoli.