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« on: December 27, 2005, 09:23:24 AM » |
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Greetings Stanyell Bruce and others from the administration and faculty of Columbia University:
It has come to our attention that you and Columbia University have rescinded your invitation to host Omali Yeshitela as the featured speaker at the opening of Columbia's African History Month on February 1, 2006.
You stated that this decision was made because of your "concerns" and the "concerns" of some of the faculty and administration about Omali Yeshitela. Despite the fact that you raised the issue of these "concerns" you refused to state what the concerns are. The decision of the university is one thing. The refusal, however, to state your political differences or other reasons for rescinding Omali Yeshitela's speaking engagement, we believe, is unprincipled.
This stand, it seems to us, goes against the principles of academic freedom of speech, honest debate and open discussion that is generally upheld and valued by universities, especially universities as prestigious as Columbia. More than that, it carries with it innuendos of slander or underhanded suggestions of a personal nature, not unlike those used by the U.S. government against black leaders of the movement of the 1960s. Your actions are extremely dangerous in the face of the current political climate created by the Patriot Act and other anti-democratic interventions by the government that are so reminiscent of the COINTELPRO era. The fact that universities would act in accordance with this repressive climate is unfortunate.
Omali Yeshitela is Chairman of the African People's Socialist Party and leader of the Uhuru Movement. He is, as his resume shows, the most active and most important African revolutionary leader in this time when African people in this country and around the globe are suffering near genocidal conditions. He has worked tirelessly since the 1960s to rebuild the black movement, to unify African people everywhere and to liberate Africa, which is indeed the birthright of all African people everywhere.
The Uhuru Movement represents the interests of the African working class and poor inside this country and around the world, as did Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey and Kwame Nkrumah. Out of everyday struggle against police containment policies in African communities for the past 40 years Omali Yeshitela has developed his political theory, African Internationalism. This theory makes sense of why it is that African people are impoverished and catching hell wherever we are located around the world, even though our continent is the richest in the world in natural resources. It shows us how we are going to exercise our human right to liberate ourselves from oppression. The Uhuru Movement today is the only movement with real liberation organizations actually on the ground throughout the U.S., Europe, and Africa.
Everything that Omali Yeshitela stands for has been put out publicly in his books, in our newspaper, The Burning Spear, through his speeches and on our websites. He has no private or secret agenda. He invites—always—open public debate about the justness and correctness of what he is saying and doing. Please, state your positions and discuss it openly with him. He would welcome that.
To relegate your disagreements to the shadows of innuendo and implication is the most profound form of dishonesty. It is petty, dangerous and, again, counter to the standards of academic and democratic freedom. We are also aware of the historic hostility that Professor Manning Marable has expressed toward Omali Yeshitela and his work. It is possible that Prof. Marable may be behind this cowardly stand. If so, we ask him to come forward to state openly his "concerns" about Chairman Yeshitela and what he stands for.
We feel that if Columbia University does not open up this question to the public arena of open political debate it becomes our responsibility from the African People's Socialist Party to alert both the broader academic community as well as the populace at large about this issue. This is not going to be relegated to a backroom discussion. The debate about the future of African people must be open to the participation of all.
Uhuru!
Nyabinga Dzimbahwe The Burning Spear newspaper
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