Basic Principles of African Internationalism

African Internationalism:
The Theory of the African
Revolution
 The political theory of the African
working class in Africa, the U.S. and
where ever Africans are dispersed
around the world by colonialism and
imperialism.
 The theory necessary to reunite and
liberate Africa and African people
everywhere.

Key Points of
African Internationalism
#1
 Capitalism is a parasitic system, born
of and maintained through the
enslavement of African people, the
theft of African resources, and the
colonial domination and genocide of
African and oppressed peoples
around the world.

Key Points of
#2
 Africans are one people, forcibly
dispersed by imperialism and facing
the same colonial conditions of
poverty, powerlessness and
oppression around the world.
 African people in the U.S. are in a
state of domestic colonialism.

Key Points of
#3
 The wealth and power of U.S. and
European imperialism are a direct
result of the theft of the labor, land
and resources of African and other
colonized peoples.

Key Points of
#4
 Parasitic capitalism enables the
entire white population, including
white workers, to live on a pedestal
of prosperity and democracy based
on the stolen labor, resources, land
of African people and other colonized
peoples.

Key Points of
#5
 In Africa, the U.S. and around the
world capitalism has set up
neocolonialism, aform of indirect rule
by which imperialist powers continue
to exercise political and economic
control of colonial populations
through nominally independent
puppet leaders.

Key Points of
#6
 The African working class, united around
the world, must lead the struggle to liberate
Africa, destroy the colonial borders, unite
our Motherland and become its ruling class.

 The African People’s Socialist Party, a
component of the African Socialist
International, is the revolutionary
organization of the African working class.

Key Points of
#7
 The only way African workers can launch a
successful African Revolution, overturning
imperialist domination in Africa, winning
political power in our own hands and
reuniting and liberating Africa and African
people is through organization:
– The revolutionary party led by and
representing the interests of the African
working class.
– This organization is the African People’s
Socialist Party.

Key Points of
#8
 The African People’s Socialist Party
unites with all revolutionary and
democratic forces around the world
struggling for national liberation, the
destruction of parasitic capitalism
and the end of an imperialist world
order.

Key Points of
#9
 North Americans and Europeans are
called on to stand in solidarity with
the struggle for African Liberation
byjoining the African People’s
Solidarity Committee, working under
the leadership of the African People’s
Socialist Party.

Oppressed and
Oppressor Nations

Oppressed Nation

 African people
wherever we are
located face
– Mass poverty, starvation,
– powerlessness, martial
law,
– populations dispersed

Oppressed Nation
 Inside the U.S.:
– Poverty, homelessness,
– mass imprisonment,
– escalating police
containment against
African communities!

Oppressor Nation
 America and Europe are
rich because Africa is
poor!
 White people live at the
expense of stolen labor,
resources of African,
colonized peoples!

Oppressor nation Oppressed nation

•Worldwide:
Oppressed peoples are
struggling for
self-determination,
control over their land,
governments and resources,
creating crisis for imperialism!

History

The European assault on Africa
expropriated our right to self-
determination.

Africa: For 5,000 years the most
Powerful civilization on the planet

The Silk Road

Ancient world trade routes:
From Africa to China

Europe was poor, diseased and warlike
In the Middle Ages Europe was ravaged by the plague,
killing half its population and destroying its economy.

•Europe rescued itself by attacking Africa
for its gold and human and material resources.

Early 1400s: Portugal began its assault on Africa and
trade in African people.

By 1500: Portugal alone had stolen
700 tons of gold and 81,000 Africans
from Africa

Trade in African human beings
reaped unprecedented profits
and
wealth for Europe

The slave trade gave birth to capitalism,
transforming Europe into a wealthy,
industrial, imperialist power

Before the slave trade,
Africa was prosperous and Europe was poor.
Now Europe is rich at Africa’s expense!

Chairman Omali Yeshitela:

“In the U.S. imperialism was constructed off the
enslavement of African people and the near
decimation of the Native population….
the resources, the wealth, the near slave labor
of the vast majority of the peoples of the world
have been the basis for the development not only
of the wealth of the ruling class, but the entire
North American society.”

The white ruling class
sits on a pedestal of
slavery and genocide

The white middle class and working class
also exist on a pedestal of
slavery and genocide

The entire
white
population
sits on a
pedestal of
slavery,
genocide,
colonialism

Entire capitalist
economy:
built on backs of
African and other colonized
peoples

Capitalism built on the stolen resources
and labor of African people

Ship building for slave ships
in England became a huge industry

British ships stole people, ivory and gold from Africa.
African people were sold in the
Americas to labor for free on plantations. Ships took tobacco, sugar,
cotton back to Britain for manufacturing.

For almost 500 years African people were
enslaved so that Europe and the U.S.
could enjoy wealth, democracy, opportunity.

The Americas were built
on the stolen land of the
Indigenous people.

The government and
white settlers committed
genocide against them.

•Indigenous people waged
powerful resistance.

Throughout the Americas African people were auctioned
like cattle spawning economic prosperity for white people.

Plantation owners kept African people in
*breeding pens* like animals.
The resulting African children were sold in auctions.

The resistance of African people was relentless,
contributing to the end of chattel slavery

The end of the colonial
system of slavery put
African people in Africa,
the U.S. and around the
world under direct
colonial rule.

Only African people can liberate
ourselves and regain our self-
determination.

White workers carried out terrorism against African people
to keep us from jobs, prosperity,
independent communities

African people
built independent towns
and
economic institutions.

Mobs of white people
Attacked, terrorized and
destroyed them.

For almost a hundred years after
slavery ended, African people by
the thousands were put into forced
labor camps called
Convict Leasing.

Convict leasing was “Slavery by another name,”
forcing even African children to work in
mines, fields, roads.
•This rebuilt the wealth of the South after the civil war

Today, African people live under brutal
conditions of colonialism inside the U.S.

Millions of African people in the U.S. are
either unjustly locked up
or tied to the colonial prisons.

Like the slave trade
prison labor is
slave labor,
making millions of
dollars for
capitalism

Berlin Conference
1884-5

Carved up Africa for
the benefit of the
colonial powers!

Colonialism in Africa.
Africans enslaved onour
own land
so Europe could steal
Africa’s resources

1890s: Belgium murdered
and cut off hands of millions
of people in Congo
so they could steal our rubber.

Millions of Africans
died as we were
forced to hunt ivory for
Europeans and
North Americans.

In South Africa, the British
Forced Africans to labor in
mines for precious
diamonds.

African people were demeaned,
enslaved on our own land
while white settlers lived in wealth

Africans were placed
under apartheid and
pass laws
on our own land!

In Namibia German settlers
committed genocide against Africans, especially
the Herero and Nama people
and stole Africa’s land.

African people waged constant resistance against
our colonial oppressors.

Marcus Garvey: In the 1920s Garvey built a worldwide
movement of African people with the slogan,
“Africa for Africans, those at home and those abroad”

1960s: anti colonial movements
in Africa and around the world
challengedimperialist power.

1960s U.S. Black Power Movement:
Urban African workers in U.S. • Anti-colonial movement

U.S. waged
counterinsurgency
against
oppressed peoples
struggling for
national liberation

COINTELPRO U.S. counterinsurgency against Black Power Movement
Assassination of Movement leaders, attacks on movement.

Neocolonialism:
With the defeat of the movements for
national liberation
inside U.S. and around the world,
the U.S. set up colonial puppets to
carry out the will of imperialism.

Africa is rich in natural
resources.
But Africa’s resources are still
controlled by the colonial
powers!

Mandela and the owner of DeBeers diamondcompany:
Neocolonialism facilitates the
ongoing looting of Africa’s resources

The U.S. has set up AFRICOM to try to
keep us oppressed

Despite Africa’s vast natural wealth,
under neocolonialism
half of Africa lives on a dollar a day

Much of Africa still has
no roads, no electricity,
no running water.

Our children are
forced into hard
labor!

Diamond workers live
on 30 cents a day
while diamond corporations
make millions of dollars!
The diamonds belong to African people!

U.S. backed resource wars
terrorize the people.

Millions are dying
in U.S. backed resource
wars in Congo

Neocolonialism:
White power in
black face

Parasitic capitalism:
stolen for the benefit of
imperial powers

Blood Oil

Colonial corporations make
billions of dollars
from African oil
while African people
Starve.

There is no future for African people without
African Revolution
led by the African working class

Africans are one people around the world

for African people!

African workers must lead
the African Revolution

The African Liberation Movement
is part of the worldwide movement
to overturn imperialism
and win national liberation

African People’s Socialist Party
African Socialist International

Carrying out the legacy of
Garvey, Lumumba, Nkrumah, Malcolm X
for the liberation and reunification of Africa

African Socialist International

African workers around the world:
Unite to liberate Africa

Uhuru Movement:
African workers
doing for self

Build the African Socialist International!

Touch One! Touch All!

One Africa! One Nation!

Basic Principles of African Internationalism