December 12th Movement

Pan-Africanist human rights organization of Black revolutionaries fighting for the self-determination and liberation of the Black masses

[D.P. is @dpurifoy.bsky.social @daniellepurifoy]

Tomorrow, Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard faces three misdemeanor charges for protecting students who were protesting the Gaza genocide. Of 10 defendants, her charges are most punitive. Please sign this letter demanding that all charges be dropped.
https://t.co/9OZgEhNvJF

[Hands off Uhuru! Hands off Africa! @HandsOffUhuru]

On Saturday, October 19th @ 3pm ET, the Hands Off Uhuru Fightback Coalition presents, "From the Panther 21 to the Uhuru 3: How “Conspiracy Charges” are Used to Attack the African Liberation Movement"

[African Stream @african_stream]

On 5th October, 2024, President Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Faso made an important statement in a radio address: the country will be revoking mining licences and focusing on mining its own gold.

Since the revolution that brought him to power, several of the country's gold mines have been nationalised, including Boungou and Wahgnion. In addition, early into his presidency, the Canada-based Trevali mining firm ended operations in Burkina after it was found guilty of manslaughter by a Burkinabe court.

Ouagadougou is increasingly focused on manufacturing and refining raw materials locally. It’s laid the foundation for its first gold refinery, which is set to launch by the end of this year. The site will be able to produce 150 tonnes of gold annually. The country has also opened a mining-waste treatment facility.

Burkina Faso, which is part of an anti-imperialist bloc known as the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), is not the only country vigorously asserting sovereignty over its natural resources. Neighbouring AES member Mali has signed a contract with Russia to build a gold refinery capable of producing 200 tonnes of gold per year. And next-door Niger (also in the AES) recently revoked French company Orano's licence to exploit uranium.

According to World Gold Council, Mali was the second-largest gold producer in Africa in 2023, while Burkina Faso was fourth.

[Hampton Institute @HamptonThink]

Capitalists take billions of dollars from the value created by our labor, leave us broke and destitute with poverty wages, throw a fraction of those billions to charities that exist to ease our destitution (but don't), and are then painted as heroes by their schools and media.

[@[email protected] @Imani_Barbarin]

Throughout this genocide, Joe Biden has done everything in his power to delay and obfuscate any and all efforts to get it to end.

This is no different.

[Charles Brooks/Brooks Blackboard @_CharlesBrooks]

They work to advance the political interests of the institution they work for. Not the interests of Black working people. The interests are not aligned.

#notthesame

[Hüseyin Dogru @hussedogru_]

The Black Panther Party was founded on this day in 1966. Listen to founder Bobby Seale lay out the party’s original 10-point program, a list of demands for Black liberation. The Black Panther Party organized the oppressed by providing public services, using their Second Amendment right to bear arms, and advocating for socialism and national liberation. In doing so, they shocked the US government, which undertook a campaign of repression that included infiltration and sabotage from the FBI.

[The Jazz Estate @thejazzestate]

Remembering the great Fela Kuti who was born on this day in 1938. He was regarded as the principal innovator of Afrobeat, which fused American blues, jazz, and funk with traditional Yoruba music.

Fela’s musical life spanned through a period of almost four decades, from the 1960s through to the 1990s. Following his 1969 tour of the United States, where he was influenced by the politics of Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Kuti’s music became increasingly politicized.

Initially he sang songs that were generally not political, in his native Yoruba tongue and in English. But he soon started to sing anti-establishment songs, which very quickly brought him in collision with both imperialism and their local agents in power at home.

He soon became an avowed enemy of the ruling military Junta of General Obasanjo and their collaborators like MKO Abiola. Notwithstanding threats and intimidation, he continued his criticisms of the military dictatorship and its imperialist friends - such as the owners of multinationals companies like Shell, ITT, Mobil, etc.

In line with his Pan-Africanist identity, he later changed his surname, Ransome-Kuti, a hybrid of a slave name and an African name to Anikulapo-Kuti, which is completely African. “Anikulapo” literally means “he that has pocketed death”.

Here, he is performing “Authority Stealing” with his band, live in Lagos.

[African Stream @african_stream]

On this day in 1987, visionary pan-African icon and leader of Burkina Faso Thomas Sankara was assassinated by his longtime friend and, at the time ,minister of state, Blaise Compaoré. That put a temporary halt to his progressive vision for the Sahel nation, which - under him - saw land redistribution, expanded access to education and mass vaccination. After his death, Ouagadougou again came under the sway of ex-colonial power France amid lingering suspicions that Paris had a hand in the assassination.

Sankara was taken too soon. But the torch he lit continues to guide Burkina Faso. We compare Thomas Sankara's impact over his four-year tenure with the work accomplished by the man currently at the nation’s helm, Ibrahim Traoré.

Since coming to power in 2022, Traoré has embarked on similar initiatives, including the removal of French influence in Burkina Faso and the partial realisation of the pan-African project: the unification with Mali and Niger into a tripartite anti-imperialist confederation.

Do you think Traoré is a Sankara 2.0?

[AFRICAN & BLACK HISTORY @AfricanArchives]

37 years ago today, Thomas Sankara, a revolutionary African leader, was assassinated by French imperialists.

Sankara drove out French imperialism from Burkina Faso and withdrew from IMF and made the country non-reliant on foreign aid.

He was assassinated in a coup led by his close ally, Blaise Compaoré supported by French imperialists

As far as African leadership goes, Thomas Sankara was cut from a different piece of cloth.

Here are some of his accomplishments, ONLY 4 YEARS in power (1983-87):

– He vaccinated 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles in a matter of weeks.
– He initiated a nation-wide literacy campaign, increasing the literacy rate from 13% in 1983 to 73% in 1987.
– He planted over 10 million trees to prevent desertification
– He built roads and a railway to tie the nation together, without foreign aid
– He appointed females to high governmental positions, encouraged them to work, recruited them into the military, and granted pregnancy leave during education.
– He outlawed female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy in support of Women’s rights
– He sold off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers.
– He reduced the salaries of all public servants, including his own, and forbade the use of government chauffeurs and 1st class airline tickets.
– He redistributed land from the feudal landlords and gave it directly to the peasants. Wheat production rose in three years from 1700 kg per hectare to 3800 kg per hectare, making the country food self-sufficient.
– He opposed foreign aid, saying that “he who feeds you, controls you.”
– He spoke in forums like the Organization of African Unity against continued neo-colonialist penetration of Africa through Western trade and finance. • He called for a united front of African nations to repudiate their foreign debt. He argued that the poor and exploited did not have an obligation to repay money to the rich and exploiting
– In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army’s provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).
– He forced civil servants to pay one month’s salary to public projects.
– He refused to use the air conditioning in his office on the grounds that such luxury was not available to anyone but a handful of Burkinabes.
– As President, he lowered his salary to $450 a month and limited his possessions to a car, four bikes, three guitars, a fridge and a broken freezer.
– A motorcyclist himself, he formed an all-women motorcycle personal guard.
– He required public servants to wear a traditional tunic, woven from Burkinabe cotton and sewn by Burkinabe craftsmen. (The reason being to rely upon local industry and identity rather than foreign industry and identity)
– When asked why he didn’t want his portrait hung in public places, as was the norm for other African leaders, Sankara replied “There are seven million Thomas Sankaras.”
– An accomplished guitarist, he wrote the new national anthem himself

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[Dwayne Omowale @DOmowale]

Kwame Ture and Martin Luther King had very strong ideological differences, but this did not prevent them from working together and from influencing each other in their work. As Malcolm X said, we should unite on the basis of shared objectives, even if we disagree on tactics.

[Melodies & Masterpieces @SVG__Collection]

Happy birthday to the legendary Fela Kuti, who was born on this day in 1938!

He is regarded as the principal innovator of Afrobeat, a Nigerian music genre that combines West African music with American funk and jazz.

At the height of his popularity, he was referred to as one of Africa's most "challenging and charismatic music performers".

In this clip, we see him performing “Pansa Pansa” alongside Africa 70 live in 1978

[darius. @_dariussimpson]

read the politics, analysis, objectives, stories, and lessons of the Black Panther Party in their own words. understand the New Afrikan Independence Movement as an outgrowth of the Black Power/Liberation Movement.
there’s fires to start. a torch to pick up.

[Digital Ascension Group ₿ @beyondB_DAG]

Rest in power.
The dreams you had for Africa will be realised.

[Adémọ́lá. @OgbeniDemola]

Libya is a a mess today because of USA intervention 11 years ago, Haiti, Congo, Sudan are all unstable today because of western need for minerals.

[African Stream @african_stream]

DRC POLICE FIRE AT STUDENT PROTESTERS

A viral video of police shooting student protesters has sent shockwaves across the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The protest broke out on the morning of 7 October amidst frustration over an ongoing teacher's strike over low wages that kept students out of school in Matadi in western DRC.

According to local media https://t.co/DBslVlRtPZ, police arrested a dozen students for a hearing on 8 October at the Children's Court while two officers were due for a hearing at the Matadi Military Court.

'The students only have pens and notebooks,' one anonymous person reportedly said. 'Why do the police shoot innocent people and very young children when there is another way of doing it?'

Check out our exclusive interview with Maurice Odingo of the Marxist Pan-African organisation Kinshasa Committee. He relayed details from the scene.

[Manolo De Los Santos @manolo_realengo]

Cuba stands alone as the only country in the world where a President (Miguel Díaz-Canel) leads a pro-Palestine march, calling for an end to the U.S.-sponsored genocide of the Palestinian people.

[Digital Ascension Group ₿ @beyondB_DAG]

All Burkinabe Faso asks for, is to be left alone.

They can produce their own machines, cultivate their land, feed their people, develop harmonious relationships with other nations, and have mutually beneficial trade.

Is that too much to ask, UK &France