The State and Repression

October 23, 2010

By Mumia Abu Jamal

[Speech Delivered to International Anti-Repression Congress,

October 8-10, 2010, Hamburg, Germany. Recorded by Prisonradio.org]

For those of us active in social movements, I'm often surprised at our surprise
when the State acts in a repressive or oppressive fashion. It teaches us that
the cloudy dreams of Western liberalism have pierced and permeated
consciousness, often against our own stated perceptions or ideological
persuasion.

We have seemingly forgotten, it seems, the fundamental nature of the state, as

held by Marx and Engels over 100 years ago in The Communist Manifesto,
where the state is described as but “the executive committee” of the
bourgeoisie.

As such, there are hardly limits to the repression it will utilize to serve the
rulers, especially in the stark absence of an effective counter-force. That force
must be—must be—an organized, resistant people, who will fight for another
way; a way out of the trap of the state — as presently conceived.

As a man born in the West (specifically the U.S.), I am actually quite ignorant of
the vast scope and breadth of European history, but some years ago, I read a
book covering over 500 years of Europe's revolutionary history. Although
perhaps little known today, that history is vibrant, insightful and inspiring. It
should inform and inspire us today as we face this new empire of neo-
liberalism, the latest expression of capitalism, which is a force which exploits
not only external, but internal targets.

Thus, societal resources are mobilized to attack foreign subjects (usually in the
so-called developing world) while denying social services to the domestic
population, like healthcare, education, housing and other such necessities.
Indeed, the very notion of “social” is attacked by the rulers, and their corporate
media, as the business model is raised and reified as the only reasonable
structure upon which society is organized.

In truth, for more than half a millennia, figures arose in Europe, and as part of
sometimes, huge social movements, to challenge the powers and hierarchies
which ruled, because they were too repressive, too exploitative or
fundamentally unfair. And while many of these leaders and movements were
brutally suppressed, their efforts cast long shadows through time, which we
may excavate for the struggles of this hour.

These historical resistance figures, many from religious dissenting groups, or

small political opposition formations, did not, of course, prevail. Yet, like isles on
the face of the ocean, they were tips of social mountains that were unseen,
mostly unheard, yet were there nonetheless.

From the late 1200s to the early-mid 1300s, arose several figures who rocked
their societies with new, radical ideas. Among them, were the German monk,
Meister [Johannes] Eckhart, the Florentine protester, Giano della Bella, and the
Flemish Jacques van Artevelde.

Of these, perhaps best remembered is Eckhart, a Dominican theologian and

mystic, who raised the quite radical suggestion that man created God, and not
the reverse, for which he was forced to recant. In 1329 Pope John XXII
condemned his writings.

Of della Bella, he put forth the Ordinances of Justice, based on radical

republican ideas. Van Artevelde was a leader of several successful worker
revolts in Flemish towns. These figures were followed by people like the Czech
priest, Jan Hus, who, influenced by the English theologian John Wycliff, opposed
the doctrine of papal infallibility; John Ball of Kent County, England, called “the
crazy priest" for his popular outdoor speeches, called for an end to rule of the
rich over the poor, who were but "slaves," and, Bohemian Martin Huska was a
revolutionary, a free thinker and a 15th-century communist.

Of course, the German priest Martin Luther, was a religious revolutionary (at
least in his earlier days) who rocked the Church and state by his opposition to
indulgences. He was excommunicated, after which he both married and
founded his own church, which still exists today. There are over eight million
Lutherans in the U.S. today.

Some of these rebels fought wars against the powers of their day, Like
Bohemian Hussite, Jan Zizka, who fought in some 12 battles against the Holy
Roman Empire, and was considered the “Cromwell of the Bohemian
Revolution.” Or Prokop Holy (Veliky), a Czech Hussite successor to Zizka, who
was part of a Hussite militia called “Warriors of God,” which swept across
Europe for a decade.
Europe for a decade.

These figures would be succeeded by English revolutionaries like Gerrard

Winstanley, John Lilburne, and Abiezer Copp, who were generally more
concerned with the crown than the church. Winstanley was considered an early
socialist, who opposed royal and landlord ownership of land, which he
considered the common property of all mankind. Lilburne, similarly was called a
“Leveller," who was whipped in 1638 for distributing anti-clerical literature.
Some time thereafter he was a Lieutenant Colonel in Cromwell's New Model
Army, the force that usurped, imprisoned and later beheaded an, English King,
Charles I, in 1649.

Of course, to most of us, this sounds like ancient history, and we've not even
rapped about François “Gracchus" Babeuf, the French revolutionary journalist,
or Marx, or V. I. Lenin; or Rosa Luxemburg, for that matter.

I say all this to say, revolution is in your blood. You are the great grandchildren
of revolutionaries who fought across the vast expanse of Europe to try to live in
freedom and equality.

You may not remember them, it’s true.

But when you study them, they can almost come alive again, to enrich and
inspire your tomorrows. For a revolutionary tomorrow! I thank you!

Ona Move!

Mumia Abu- Jamal

Death Row/USA

[Source: 500 Years of Revolution: European Radicals from Hus to Lenin by

Charles H. George]

Mumia Abu- Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING

PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- is
available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?
GCOI=87286100448090

Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots

work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF
MUMIA ABU- JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU- JAMAL COALITION (NYC).

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