Nelson Mandela- Why I Reactivated My Activism

                Although I grew in Nigeria going against the norm in secondary school where I earned the reputation as a student leader, my desire to rededicate myself towards activism did not peak until 2001 just one month before I graduated from University of Maryland (UMD). I had made the decision to concentrate on my studies when I got to the Maryland academy due to some negative experiences in my high school student government at the International Secondary School, Rivers State University of Science and Technology. At the UMD I joined the African Students Association (ASA) and was instrumental in setting up our very first website which was established with my second student (glue) account. When the president of the ASA who happened to be a Nigerian was forced to relinquish his position due to misappropriation of our public funds and academic probation, I was distraught but hung around as an active member to ensure that the organization was in solid footing.

However, when we elected the first African American female as the president of the University of Maryland African Student Association, I worked with the organization for a while before deciding to concentrate on my studies and employment opportunities. At certain times as a student I took up full time job positions while enrolled in school as a fulltime student with upwards of 12credits per semester. Since I did not want to make the same mistakes I made in high school, I eventually disassociated myself from the ASA and the larger student body Student Government Association (SGA). But as the years went by, I was able to relate from a distance with the first African/Black (Nigerian origin) and minority (in the United States) female SGA student body president. After Juliana Njoku’s historic elections as the President of the Executive branch and head of the student body, she was confronted with several racial hostilities in 1999 that got the campus engulfed in some publicized tensions.

                In those days, I would see the worried looks of stress on her face. I saw the student president’s situation as analogous to that of my friend Irabor and mine in high school. Nonetheless after witnessing the last 3years of the Obama presidency and the explicit racial currents, I reckon that her situation is parallel to that of President Barack Obama. Irabor was the president and this writer the vice-president of the Christian Student Unions (CSU) in secondary school. Both of us were strong evangelical students within the school body who believed in academic meritocracy and were tapped to get nominated by the teachers as senior student prefects in our final year. But our expectations were dashed when we received our report cards. We found out that our arch rival and the principal of the school, who hated us dearly because he was Sabbatarian and resented our Pentecostal influence in school, had won the battle for control by rigging our grades and essentially failing us. We were devastated and went back to the University Chaplain for solace as we had done at other times when we were presented with challenges from the principal.

                   Ironically, the university’s pastor could not assist us because he was embroiled in his own scandals. There were allegations that some of his academic documents from universities in England and the United States could not stand scrutiny. Our dear chaplain was also alleged to have sexually assaulted some of the university and high school female students during his often held deliverance sessions. On some of our visits to his office on campus I wondered out loud with my friends. Why he took so long casting out the demons? Why there was a noticeable environment of privacy? Why he came out with tremendous perspiration after his closed sessions with the subjects who were alleged to be his victims? How come the ladies in question always looked irritated and avoided eye contact after their emergence from the so-called prayers? In the midst of these developments in Nigeria, I got an epiphany about most organized religions and embraced the notion that religion is indeed politics. I became conscious of the reality that secrecy, sycophancy, and corruption were not only in the Catholic Church, the denomination of my parents but also in my adopted Pentecostal community. These teenage experiences enabled me to tread carefully when I got into the UMD.   

During Juliana Njoku’s tenure at College Park Maryland as the president of the SGA her situation was mostly complicated because of the disarray within the black student bodies. Although, she did not have a solid base and/or reliable allies who could give her the support that was necessary as the first SGA president of African origin she was able to maintain her pose. The Ethiopian students were busy breaking away from the ASA and forming their own campus body. The Black Student Union (BSU) was involved in shameless heated acrimony with the ASA and rejected the peace efforts of the UMD Nyumburu Cultural Center staffs. When Ms. Njoku and others received hate mails we thought that was an aberration but soon witnessed another round of uniform hatred and distortions after President Nelson Mandela was invited to the campus. His invitation was a crescendo to the anti-immigrant, anti-African, and anti-black attitude on campus. Madiba as he is affectionately called was invited to deliver the Anwar al-Sadat Lecture for Peace on November 14th, of 2001 at the University of Maryland, an annual lecture series named after the former Egyptian Head of State.

                  However, this most sacred moment was nearly upending by the venom of racial intolerance and pseudo historical analysis on the pages of the Diamondback student newspaper by some misers of the truth within the student body. The Republican Student Association led the canard of opinion writers to suppress the truth on campus by christening President Mandela as a terrorist. These nefarious, insensitive, and privileged students decided to accuse Mr. Nelson Mandela of being an extremist without portfolio. I and many others were lost for words and wondered how one of the best symbols of peace and reconciliation in the history of the world could be so maligned by few students. I marveled at how in a left leaning state like Maryland (maybe second only to Massachusetts), people could have so much irresponsible misrepresentations of facts. Thus my assessment was that if these east coast chaps would call Mr. Mandela a terrorist then surely they must realize that President George Washington is not as dignified as the Nobel Peace prize winner Madiba. The Republican students took to a smear campaign because most republican presidents are not honorable enough to touch the soles of Madiba’s feet in a thorough and objective analysis of history.

                After witnessing the speech of President Mandela at the Cole field House and his uncanny ability to speak truth to power especially on the issue of the original 9-11 attack and his opposition against the impending Iraq war, I was moved to embrace my activism. In his keynote speech he called out the double speaks, double talks, and insidious lies that were orchestrated to obfuscate the truth in the United State and the West at this sold out gathering. Then my analysis of the situation came full circle when I realized that the conservative and Republican students had gone ahead to demonize President Mandela because he was against the misinformation apparatus that would eventually lead us to an illegal and unjust war against Iraq. Mandela spoke up way before we found out that Dick Cheney was feeding information to the New York Times through Scooter Libby and then going on the Meet the Press show with Mr. Tim Russert to cite the same stories/sources as facts.

Therefore, as contemporary social justice activists, I and others are able to stand on the shoulders of the Great Mr. Nelson Mandela and expose the voters’ suppression laws, election fraud, and misinformation campaign of the Republican Party and Tea Party. We challenge the mainstream press or corporate media to do more to address the systematic suppression, fraud, and misinformation that are hallmarks of the conservative party. The same folks that told us that part of their packs of lies for invading Iraq included the establishment of a free and fair election are now writing their names not with the election ink of Iraq but along the hall of shame annals of dictators and segregationist. Thus the Republican Governor of Pennsylvania Mr. Tom Corbett is using the same scare tactic as Saddam Hussein. Governor Rick Scott of Florida and the Secretary of State Scott Gessler of Colorado are the new George Wallace of our times. How about other luminaries of the 2012 election cheating and stealing class such as Governor John Kasich of Ohio and his secretary of state Jon Husted who have flagrantly undermined the decisions of the courts in their unabashed determination to suppress voters and would go down as comrades of Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan? The chairman of the national Republican Party Reince Priebu knowingly hired Nathan Sproul the election fraudster of international reckoning and notoriety.                                                                                  

Like in the President Nelson Mandela situation at the University of Maryland the Republicans have unleashed their warfare of obfuscation and retrogression. Instead of expanding their base to include a broad spectrum of the American public they have hedged their party’s future on marginalizing all and sundry. On women issues, they are against equal pay for equal work and women’s rights to control their bodies including in times of rape and incest. For all immigrants especially Latinos, the Republicans are espousing electoral intimidation with the pretext of voter identification fraud, targeted economic sanctions that would starve and cripple families and ultimately lead to self-deportation. The attack against white men and others includes downsizing companies with enormous profits, outsourcing jobs, and then using the proceeds to open hidden accounts in the Carman Islands, Monaco, and Switzerland. African Americans and students face an unprecedented disenfranchisement and intimidation exercise that would make apartheid seem like the next step after a history of police profiling and discriminatory criminal incarcerations.

                In reality these attacks and the misinformation that follow are not exclusive to these different groups and if the Republican Party is allowed to triumph we are going to have an economic apartheid state ruled by the 1% for the 1% against the 47% and/or 99% with more income disparities and indentured labor. If after spending 27years in trumped up charges in prison President Mandela was subjected to vitriolic attacks by members of the Republican Party then President Obama should remain optimistic. Those of us that have lived under dictatorships and have actually heard martial music on the airways know what divide and rule and authoritarianism is all about. We know about economic hardship that befalls the 99% when few plutocrats lie, steal power, and only care about their privileged friends and country club communities. This is why we are standing up on the mountain tops and screaming out of our lungs against the Republican Party and their tycoon tax evading candidate Governor Mitt Romney. Senator Rick Santorum was on point when he called him the worst republican. Albeit are the American people going to vote for a job exporter with no moral core just because he is a white man?      

                                     Nnamdi F. Akwada MSW, BA is a Social Justice Activist

Reference

http://www.angelfire.com/mo/realHiphop/mddcva.html

 

Spineless President Barack Obama

After watching the first debate between President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney, most progressives and Americans were forced to admit that the president was woefully unprepared for the occasion. Mr. Obama had not bothered to prepare intensively and/or he did not consult people like Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts who revealed the real Mr. Wilbur Mitt Romney during the Democratic Party convention. Instead Obama looked lethargic and perplexed when Romney took his act of etch a sketching into power driver. My seven year old son was in the know that Governor Romney was going to say anything in the Denver debate to the American people to seem reasonable and to appear favorable.

However, the performance of President Obama did not totally surprise some of us on the left. Mr. Obama has only stood up to three entities since he assumed the presidency in January of 2009. These are the real terrorists, the assumed terrorist, and progressives. Indeed he has continued with Bush and Cheney policies and even expanded on them. While Obama receives praises for killing Osama bin Laden, he also ordered the assassination of American citizen Anwar al-Aulaqi without any trial. The Colorado domestic issues discussion did not reckon the drone assassination of 16year old Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi who was born in Denver. The young man was targeted by his government 2weeks after his father’s death. The progressives who organized and volunteered their time for the “Yes We Can” campaign were told to shut up and keep out of sight while the regime placated conservative Democrats like Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.

Hence, the audacity of Governor Romney to get on stage with the President and proclaim how he was in the race for the unemployed and the middle class, though he was one of the forerunners of off-shoring American jobs, investing in tax havens, reaping astronomical tax benefits in the process, and his definition of middle income earners are those that make close to 250,000 per year. Mr. Obama did not reference either the 47% of Americans that Mitt characterized as irresponsible dependent victims who want government handouts or the fact that Massachusetts was 47% in the country at job creation under Romney’s stewardship. While Governor Romney embellished his bipartisan accomplishments and how democrats in the commonwealth extended hands of partnerships, the President did not once state the Republican obstructionism and their expressed desire for him to fail at all cost even when it resulted in detrimental consequences for the nations’ economy.   

Our spineless President Obama did not point out that Mitt Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan was in the clandestine meeting planning to derail his economic recovery agenda  on the eve of the his inauguration in 2009 and just before he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 that guaranteed equal pay for women. Since the debate was centered on domestic policies Mr. Obama could have easily asked Mr. Romney about his views on equal pay for equal work and/or asked his challenger if he supported the Supreme Court in their denial of Mrs. Lilly Ledbetter’s attempt to redress the economic injustices against her family. On the subject of women’s right the President could have confronted the debate stage bully on his advocated policies to defund Planned Parenthood and the Republican’s party agenda of denying women their right to choose with regards to rape, incest, and clinical life threatening dangers.

During the October 3rd, 2012 debate Mr. Romney became a born-again supporter of some Wall Street regulations, teachers, and unions. Again Obama did not see any need to counter him on these assertions. President Obama could have forcibly questioned Mitt about his support of Scott Walker the anti- union and teacher bashing governor of Wisconsin and rightwing pal of Representative Paul Ryan of WI. But again the left was not surprised because when the police officers, teachers, and firefighters took to the streets of Madison, the White House remained silence and incognito. They did not take a principled stance to challenge the most radical policies of the tea party and the Koch Brothers’ handsomely funded astroturf machineries. That is why Romney had the effrontery to be unabashedly mendacious in view of nearly 70million Americans that tuned in for the debate.

Consequently, Governor Sununu was able to castigate President Obama a professor of constitutional law as lazy and detached. Whereas the Romney henchman played up some of his and former House speaker Newt Gingrich’s best hits of racial stereotypes, President Obama has indeed been detached from the concerns of progressives.  He needs to go back and listen to Governor Deval Patrick’s speech at the Democratic National Convention. The salient question that Mr. Patrick asked remains “What do we believe?”  What does President Obama believe? When the President fully believes then he would stop playing nice with his opponents. Instead he would be harkening on to the time tested words of Vice President Joe Biden’s mother, “Joe bloody the nose of those school yard bullies.”

Thus in the next debate on foreign affairs President Obama should look at Mitt Romney right in the eyes and inquire how dare you insist on another war when you claim we are currently borrowing monies from China to service our deficits. He could also ask the governor how a Vietnam draft dodger could be championing relentless wars. An interesting question for Wilbur Mitt Romney could be why none of his 5 sons are servicing the US military in the era of September 9-11, Afghanistan, and Iraq. President Obama must probe Governor Romney in terms of jobs and investment about how much he has made from his 1% “blind trust” through his investments in China and why his taxes remains a state secret. When the issue of Libya comes up the commander in chief should stand up and stiffen his backbone while informing the governor that the United States is no longer in the business of supporting dictatorships around the world unlike Mitt’s monies and that new democracies always have their incubation periods.     

            Nnamdi F. Akwada MSW, BA is a Social Justice Activist 
                                                        
Reference                                                                                                                                                          
 http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/80701.html

Occupylogy 201: US 2012 Presidential Election, Emerging Struggles between Democrats and Progressives

At the turn of the century the Republicans had grabbed the White House through their Machiavellian exploits in Florida with a Hail Mary pass from the United States Supreme Court and George W. Bush assumed the presidency. When the conservatives arrived in town with their cowboy boots they also came along with their distinct vernaculars such as compassionate conservatism. The nation and the world were then exposed to the practicalities of compassionate conservatism when President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, the Neoconservatives, and Halliburton decided to invade and destroy Iraq under the pretext of “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”  The Republicans also gave us other variations of compassionate conservatism which they sliced up into dosages such as tax cuts for the wealthy, unpaid Medicare Modernization Act, and the Patriot Act alias torture, international rendition, circumventing of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act FISA, and the introduction of warrantless domestic wiretapping. 

The Occupy Movement is ready to take the nation on a different direction with social and economic justice. After challenging and changing the United States national narrative and dialogue from deficits to inequality and fairness last year, the Occupy Movement in America has been hibernating during the mild winter season of 2011-12. The Occupy Movement which was started in New York by progressives and drew social and tactical inspiration from the developments in Africa (Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya), the Middle East (Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria), Greece, and London is now set to further pressurize the political and economic discourse from henceforth to the elections in November. The nation and the world should be prepared for a rude awakening and progressive education of the American public. Members of these progressive factions have displayed their tenacity, discipline, and sense of purpose through their decision to go back to drawing board so that they can strike with precision and passion from May 1st 2012.

Although key sectors of the mainstream American corporate media who brought out the red carpet for the conservative Tea Party Movement and vilified the Occupy Movement might again pretend to be shocked by the patriotic civil disobedient actions we are all going to witness. Fox News, Democrats, and others should be informed that the key bone of contentions remains justice and equality in the distribution of wealth, allocation of burdens, and acceptance of responsibilities in the polity. Despite the near economic collapse of 2008-09 we still have too big to fail banks that are bigger and greedier than before, through the support of the Democrats in congress and at the white house. With the Republicans alienating women through their anti-contraceptives policies, Latinos by their harsh and inhumane immigration stances, and students with their Wall Street high interest rates, hopefully Democrats would decipher the handwriting on the walls.     

                Fortunately, I have been opportune to attend and listen to the community focused mobilization efforts within the Occupy Movement. I submit that since President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have declared their support for same sex marriages; progressives in the United States will have to press the Democrats on five major fronts. These key sectors include the economy, immigration, healthcare, justice, and foreign wars. In order for democratic and independent progressives to support the reelection campaign of President Obama, these key issues have to be addressed with more than lip service. We cannot tolerate an economic dispensation that is angled at the wimps and caprices of the Wall/War Street banks. Instrumental policies like Glass-Steagall Act need to be reinstated as a means of regulating derivatives, hedge funds, and credit swaps. We have to ask President Obama why his administration insists on allowing home owners to be foreclosed upon, whereas the banks were rescued by President Bush’s administration and again by President Obama with taxpayers’ monies. Why does President Obama plan to save only homeowners who have perfect mortgage payments and perfect credit scores?

Ironically, the home mortgage delinquency rate which is close to 6% nationally is a product of the economic recession and an indication of the continuous struggles in the economy. The national unemployment and underemployment is still a source of growing concern to many progressives. In urban cities and rural America the unemployment levels is still hovering within the 16% mark which is double the nation rate of 8.1%. Interestingly, our student populations and all women are currently presented with a choice of foregoing their insurance or having an increase in the student loan rates. We the 99% should be willing to take on the Obama administration which has continued their distant/midnight romance with Wall Street and their too big to fail banks. Like Jesus Christ the preeminent progressive we need to take up our whips to chase the Wall Street money changers and money doublers out of the exploitative dominance in the economy. How long are we going to keep on sending Wall Street banks and traders our retirement incomes for them to fleece through their various scams such as derivative betting and credit swap gambling?

                Another area progressives need to address is the area of immigration. We cannot allow immigrants that come into this country due to a plethora of reasons like others before them, to be demonized after the economy was run aground by the 1% in Wall Street and Washington. There needs to be a comprehensive immigration policy that seeks to strengthen families and communities instead of separating families. Though we should enthusiastically support The Dream Act which is all about granting citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States for many years, we ought to proceed with caution. We cannot afford to make the same mistakes and missteps that have become the hallmark of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 otherwise known as ObamaCare with the Comprehensive Immigration Reform. During that debacle the Democrats took a bill that could have resulted in either Universal healthcare coverage or single payer healthcare and watered it down with the majority slice apportioned to the for-profit Health Insurance Industrial Complex.

                With our proclivity for equality and justice it remains expedient for the Occupy Movement to fight against the double standards within the American justice system. When there are these methodical disparities in prosecutions and sentencing inside the criminal justice system, what we are left with is a banana republic with kangaroo courts that are set asides for the interests and vestiges of the 1%. Some of us that are contemporary immigrants have experienced these “Big Man” or “Oga Mentality” regimes where so-called leaders become invisible and entrenched in sustaining their powers. When a nation becomes unwilling to prosecute war criminals from the President Bush and Vice President Cheney administrations that circumvented the local laws, violated international treaties, and authorized factory scale torture, then Houston you know we got some damn problems. When Wall Street executives are allowed to bring the nation to its knees because of their greed and most of them are back to business as usual within a span of 3years, then we have transcended from too big to fail banks to systematic whitemail.

                Since progressives comprise of large segments of the independent population we need to organize and press the Democrats on their habits of sanctioning unjust wars. The Occupy Movement and those of us within the social justice and economic justice movements need to fight against the indefinite wars that have cropped up in Pakistan and Yemen. After the sad lessons of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq we should not allow the US corporate media, Neoconservatives, the US congress, Democrats, The American Israel Public Affairs Committee AIPAC, and President Benjamin Netanyahu to drag us into another unjust war in Iran. The United States of America has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world two hundred times over and Israel also has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the Middle East two hundred times over. These are facts that the Iranian government (religious and political) is very cognizant of and they would not think about attacking neither United States nor Israel despite their acquisition of a nuclear weapon. Our provocations and warmongerings against the fraudulent Iranian government would eventually weaken the Green Movement leaders and activists that arose after the rigging of the Iranian presidential election in 2009. The Iran Green Movement has the capacity of changing their regime with the advent of another Persian Spring.  

In conclusion, the progressive community needs to rally against the ever available surplus in the budgets when it comes to matters of warfare and the sudden deficits when it is time to investing in domestic policies. We cannot be underfunding/defunding the education of the present and future generations with senseless wars and warmongering initiates such as the United States nuclear shield. When teachers are fired and schools are bordered up like we are witnessing in some states in all levels of education around the country, this results in diminished competitiveness in the international spheres. As a result America is bound to have fewer inventors and pioneers to continue sustainable development and manufacturing communities. The Occupy Movement must fight for common sense regulations in the banking and energy sectors. We do not have the finances to produce slick adverts/propagandas like Exxon, Chevron, British Petroleum, Halliburton, JP Morgan Chase but we can still get the citizenry behind our messages. We have to force Democrats to deny unnecessary tax breaks to companies while making sure that they pay adequate corporate taxes.  Individuals that constitute the 1% in our population need to be taxed at higher rates without tax loopholes such as charitable deductions and offshore banking/investment accounts. Lack of justifiable taxations results in the funding of plutocratic projects like the proverbial Voters’ ID disenfranchisement and Stand Your Ground Laws by the 1% income earners.  

Nnamdi F. Akwada MSW, BA is a Social Justice Activist