Say Brother; African Liberation Committee Film; 306

This is a program by, for and about the black community. FRELIMO, an organization of courageous freedom fighters from Mozambique has a motto: "to die a tribe and be born a nation," which is the basis for this survival and determination to carry on the battle against Portuguese oppression. Since 1962 FRELIMO has been battling the colonialism of the Portuguese. The first slave holders to invade Africa to have freed one quarter of its land from these invaders whose own country is among if not the poorest nation per capita in the world. But despite the continuing oppression and their relatively limited supply of arms these dedicated and proud African brothers continue the struggle for a country they and their ancestors have nurtured for thousands of years. And in fact rightfully own.

Tonight Say Brother will explore in more depth the African Liberation Movement with a film. The struggle continues and discuss the present situation in Mozambique and Angola with liberation supporters. That in my mind I'd like to introduce our guests. First I'd like to introduce Dinizulu Ceitou, next Caroline Hunter, and Christopher Nteta Right. I'm hoping tonight that we can bring that struggle in Africa a little closer to home by making people in the Boston area, particularly black people, more aware of some of the dimensions of that struggle. And hopefully make people aware of the fact that that is also our struggle on that particular continent because Africa is in fact our homeland, our motherland. And those are our brothers and sisters. I'd like to talk to you

first, Dinizulu Ceitou and maybe you could give us an overview or some insight as to some of the dimensions of that particular struggle as it's being waged in Africa at this particular time. Yeah, well. I guess the most characteristic thing about the struggle over there, is our lack of information on it. You know it's been, when the war in Southeast Asia was much harder when the war in Northern Ireland was also harder. And of course the situation in the Middle East you know all of these have continually overshadowed the fact that there are equally bloody wars going on in Africa. And, of course it's just anyone's guess as to the reasons why you know this kind of information is not brought out into the open. But certainly one of the things we should realize is that you know what we're talking about, happening on the African continent, and especially in the Portuguese

colonies as you mentioned, Mozambique and Goa and also in Guinea Bissau, and West Africa which is just with the liberation movement has in fact just declared independence from Portugal. That what's going on is bloody guerrilla war was very similar to the war that the United States has just come out of on the losing end in Southeast Asia. Very similar to any of the kinds of guerrilla activities going on around the world. So I think that's the main thing, is that for one thing we just have to be aware of the fact. Secondly, it's also important for us to realize that OK once we understand that these wars are going on that we should also understand that that's not a foreign country where it's happening. That you know the very same forces that are involved in the in the

slaughter and oppression of Africans. In Africa also engaged in the same kinds of activities in the Caribbean and South America and right here in the United States. So just in terms of an overview you know that's you know that's the main thing. And of course the hottest spot on the continent is Southern Africa. You know of which Angola and Mozambique are just part of a of a whole complex of white-dominated nations with South Africa being at the core. So this is you know essentially what the picture looks like. Chris, you're from South Africa. Could you give us, could you bring to us some insight from your homeland as to what you see as being the importance of the struggle for liberation in South Africa and then give us some insight as to where you think that struggle stands at this particular point.

Well as Dinizulu has said, the struggle in South Africa has to be seen in the context of the whole subcontinent of Southern Africa. The countries you mentioned, the Portuguese colonies besides those three - Mozambique, Angola, and Guinea Bissau. You have Rhodesia or as the Africans call it Zimbabwe. You have Southwest Africa or Namibia as we prefer to call it. Then you have South Africa. It is that complex of nations or countries that one wants to look at rather than to look at isolated countries. This is especially true because the white minority regimes there have clubbed together. And they see their survival and continuation not so much in terms of South Africa, Rhodesia, and the Portuguese but

as a matter of all three cooperating and working together to stem the tide of the revolution from independent Africa north into the southern portion of Africa. So in talking about South Africa one has to appreciate the fact that on the black side, too, there's an attempt now to struggle in the context of a subcontinent rather than as isolated countries. The struggle in South Africa hasn't escalated yet to armed struggle. There have been sporadic events, people being arrested for infiltrating from the outside after training. There are trials that go on all the time. South Africa's Terrorism Act, which is nothing but an act that was ?passed? to deal with terrorists, and those terrorists are the guerrilla fighters or the term we prefer to use, our freedom fighters.

Now, the existence of that act or law and of cases that frequently come up in the courts. Is a part of the fact that even in South Africa the most powerful Of the countries in Southern Africa. There is an attempt by the black people to begin to or to continue to organize underground for a military or guerrilla type of struggle. That struggle is better seen in Angola and Mozambique and Guinea Bissau because it is in those territories that fighting has gone on for more than 10 years in most of those countries. Rhodesia, Southwest Africa, and South Africa have had isolated instances of fighting. And it's only now that they're beginning to step up the fighting. In terms of, say, black support in this country. That's important. That's a

very important issue. It has taken various forms. And I suppose as we go on we'll talk more about that. There've been groups, black organizations in this country that have raised funds, that have raised material, clothes, shoes whatever. Another form it has taken is to focus on those forces that Dinizulu mentioned in this country. And those are corporations that are present in South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, and so on that give aid and comfort to those minority regimes. I'm talking about the auto industry for instance, GM, Ford, Chrysler, the oil industries, IBM in the computer section and so forth. There are in South Africa alone more than 400 corporations that make a profit of anywhere from 12 to ?25?

percent. And this is one aspect that the black community is beginning to deal with, deal with these corporations that are headquartered here, that are the tools of the imperialist, you know, the United States. You know we're going to look at a film that was made by some brothers from this country about the liberation struggle in Africa. And then I think when we come back will be important to do a couple of things, one to try to bring that issue home to people here in the Boston community so they can understand and appreciate. And in fact identify with that struggle and understand that their struggle is in fact our struggle as well. and then talk about ways in which fact people might, in fact, really begin to support that struggle actively. And I also like to come back and talk to you about your own experiences, apparently about the whole Polaroid thing. Yeah, I think that, that film gives us some insight. You know as

to the dimension of that particular struggle, you know, in Africa, and I hope it also gives our audience some indication of the seriousness of that struggle and how seriously committed brothers and sisters are in Africa to that particular struggle. I'd like to hear a little about some things you've been into ?Carolina? because I think it would be important to make our public aware of what you've been through. Well. In terms of the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement, we went around and said "well, what's going on?" And the response was, well, either "Leave it alone or it's business or it's ten thousand miles away." And, as a group we decided, as black people we decided, that there had to be some, some reaction and that at that time it was the beginning of a political education for us because until we got a chance to talk to brothers from South Africa little did we understand the intensity and the seriousness of the role that that one particular corporation that we worked at, Played in South

Africa. And so as a group we decided to take an international action against Polaroid corporation. We called for protests, we called for an international boycott of all of their products and the same, at the same time, in terms of international ostracization. We asked for the same thing from the community here. And the results of that perhaps are well known. The point being that it's very important for black people here to understand the direct role between napalm in South Vietnam and napalm in Angola to Dow Chemical Company and the role of saran wrap, or aluminum foil ?in the south? that these things that go on in the continent that the perpetrations of the U.S. government and ?then they the regime? are supported by so-called tax dollars here,iIn by whatever means necessary. We have found that corporations, the government, the forces of imperialism have aligned against the African people.

And what we are calling for is the same tactic, by whatever means necessary, that we as an African people align ourselves, understand the seriousness of the struggle, and understand the importance in the role as the brother said in the film that in the course of a revolution, it's man who's the deciding factor. So we think of all of the descendants of Africa here on the continent and what deciding factor that each and every one of them can play. In terms of thwarting the destruction of the African continent, the elimination of people in the seizure of land and minerals by foreign powers, so becomes very important for everyone understand where they are or what they're doing. What relationship does that have to either supporting or containing the liberation forces in Africa. So the history of the relationship of the situation of Polaroid Corporation where Polaroid immediately responded to us, not as employees, but as enemies against them in the war, say, wait, a few miles away. But that's not

a small price to pay for the level of sacrifice that's involved, and so it's important for everyone to realize that each individual has a direct relationship to that and that's not just limited to black people. But as black people the weight is on us to stand up and do something, to stand up and declare ourselves and to support. You know, it seems like it's very important to drive that home, that black people in this country have, you know, have the responsibility to support that struggle in Africa. You know, I mean, I don't know how we can, how, you know, how, how strongly we can make that point, you know. I'd be into, I just want to throw this out and I'm interested in knowing and I think I know but it might be interesting to hear someone else. You know why is it that the Portuguese think they can just snatch up that territory in like, they own it, and claim rights to it, I mean what kind of mentality is it that allows you

to do that, you know I want to hear some responses. I'd like to hear you respond. ?Chris.? Well, Portuguese colonialism in Africa is a very long history. Portugal is the oldest colonial power in Africa. Because it was in Africa in the late 15th century. And of all the imperialist powers in Africa. It is the last surviving remaining power in Africa today. The mentality behind the Portuguese I think is a mentality that all imperialist countries have held to and this is either To extend their boundaries and derive psychological power from the fact and the realization that the power, I think with Portugal, as brother Dinizulu said and we saw in the film, Portugal is the most backward country in Europe today. For a small.

Struggling country like that to own real estate around the globe becomes a powerful psychological nationalistic type thing, and this is why the Portuguese are clinging to those territories in Africa. Besides which, of course, there's an economic factor. They derive a lot of money, a lot of funds, from the ?mineral? deposits they find in those countries. In Angola, for instance, the Gulf Oil Corporation has struck it rich in the Cabinda province of Angola where literally hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil flow out. And all this money goes into the coffers of the Portuguese. In Angola again they have A very vast supply of coffee plantations. It's one of the least known aspects of Portuguese colonialism but in Angola there are plantations,

probably, it has been said, that the largest plantation in the world is located in Angola, and those are coffee plantations. That coffee is being served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in this country from Angola. In Mozambique, cotton and other products are being produced so the Portuguese derive a great economic boost from some of these territories and so you can go on supplying reasons why a country like that would want to extend itself, would want to enrich itself, would want to boost its own morale and ego by ownership of real estate elsewhere in the world. Is, what is, what, what, What dimension of racism is involved in that? I mean, that I'd like to direct that to Dinizulu. That's there. I mean, how does that come through? Well, just picking up on what Chris was saying, I think what we really have to do is look at

the situation in the Portuguese colonies as part of what can just be called an imperialist mentality. And, in fact, we know very well we don't have, we need not look any further than right here to see that. I mean, ask any indian, you know, what that's all about. You know, in terms of, you know, where people, you know, have that, you know, mentality, that it's their sacred right to just come in and take over somebody's land. Just simply move in and settle there, and, and you can see that given that this is the goal, where the goal is to acquire land, then racism is a necessary justification, a necessary component of that. In other words, the white man must believe that the man of color is inferior, therefore it's okay to go into Australia and wipe out the Aborigines, going to South Africa and wipe out the ?Khoisan? people and the Zulus and the other Africans that were there. To come here and wipe out the red man. You know we have the same kind of situation all over all

over the world. You know, just recently you know we have the whole thing in the Middle East and so forth. So racism is, is, is clearly part and parcel of that whole thing. On what, what parallels can we draw between the struggle for liberation, what can can black people in this country learn from that particular struggle of liberation for liberation in Africa. Is there anything we can learn from that. Right. I think, I think there were parallels and I think it's also been pointed out the parallels between our resistance in South Africa and the Civil Rights Movement at that time but I think the examples that we can learn is that the level of sacrifice has to be very very high. We're not talking about as a brother showed the people tried to demonstrate peacefully, they tried to to protest and that that did not work. They have to take up arms to regain their land and notwithstanding they had to destroy the existing institutions that were there and

build their own institutions and attend to the needs of the people that were never attended to by the Portuguese, so I think that the lessons are very clear and I think the most important thing is to realize the level of sacrifice and what you're gaining at the point of that sacrifice to control of land, the regaining of their land. And to understand that that's in fact our struggle was as well as the struggle of our brothers and sisters in Africa. Exactly. That each African descendant here has a piece of land, has a share in that struggle, has a place to go home to, right, has something to fight for. Right. We've got to, we've got to, unfortunately, cut it a bit short. I'd like to say that, first of all, that one way that people in Boston can begin to support the struggle for African liberation on the African continent, African be African, being our motherland is through the the African Liberation Support Committee which Dinizulu is involved with. And I think

that is only one way to begin. But I think another way might really involve getting our heads together and then begin to understand in depth how U.S. corporations in fact support, you know, many of the colonialist nations in, in Africa. You know I was just thinking about the FRELIMO motto, to die a tribe and to be born a nation should apply to us black folks here in this country as well. I hope you'll think about what you saw tonight and pass it on. And remember be good to yourself.