Bill Fletcher Jr. addresses some of the key issues raised in Manning Marable’s acclaimed, yet for some controversial, biography ‘Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention’ published in April 2011.

Workers should be ‘centrally involved in leading the national democratic/revolutionary process’ rather than joining labour unions ‘subordinated’ to a national liberation party or post-independence ruling authority, argues Bill Fletcher, in a revisiting of Fanon’s thinking on class struggle and the national project.

Placing workers at the heart of 21st struggles for social, economic and political emancipation is the objective of the newly launched ‘Global African Worker’. Bill Fletcher, leader of the project, sets out the importance of building ‘real links between individuals and social movements who are conducting similar and sometimes overlapping struggles against racism and global capitalism.’

Although I only met Samir Amin in late 2010, I had studied his work for decades, finding in them superior analyses and inspiration. In fact, after reading so much of his work I was quite unprepared for the person I actually met. He was very down to earth, incredibly funny, and could actually listen, the latter characteristic not one that can ever be taken for granted, particularly in the case of individuals who gain iconic status.

Despite the overwhelmingly positive response to the late Manning Marable’s ‘Malcolm X: A life of reinvention’, within days its publication, the book ignited ‘a firestorm in some quarters of the Black Freedom Movement’. Bill Fletcher Jr examines the controversies around the biography.

Poet and singer Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘albums became part of my life and his songs and messages were part of the support system on which I and many other Black radicals came to depend,’ writes Bill Fletcher, Jr.

Re-reading W.E.B Dubois’s 90-year old essay on race and modern imperialism, Bill Fletcher Jr finds that is still relevant today, in the wake of the US’s November 2010 elections and ‘the victories…by the political Right’.

Bill Fletcher, Jr reviews Sasha Polakow-Suransky's 'The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa', a book which he finds effective in 'dispelling the notion of the supposed democratic and moralistic character of the Israeli state'.

cc The Left finds it hard to condemn torture when it is carried out by 'progressive' governments rather than imperialists, writes Bill Fletcher Jr, and often attempts to deny its existence or downplay its significance. Speaking with reference to acts of torture perpetrated by the Mugabe government – some against people he knows – Fletcher argues that if 'the Left is to hold the moral high ground, it must mean that it is prepared to engage in criticism – including constructive criticism – when crimes are uncovered'.

cc. With Barack Obama safely elected to his country’s highest seat of power, Bill Fletcher Jr. discusses the sense of fear and anticipation to have gripped him as the votes came in. As the wave of post-election excitement inspires the world, the author reviews the key issues revealed by the electoral process requiring attention in the immediate future, and argues that the tide of expectation around the Obama presidency will only be sustained by the regenerative role of grassroots organisational structures capable of educating and mobilising the millions of people seeking a new political direction.

I found myself facing a peculiar choice. Because I was taking election day off to do election work, I could have submitted an absentee ballot. In fact, that would probably have been the most logical thing to do. It would have saved me a lot of time. I kept procrastinating in filing for such a ballot until it was too late.

On election day I realised why I did not file the absentee ballot. Like millions of other voters, and particularly African-Americans, I had to physically touch the voting machine. In my case, it was a touch-screen computer, but it would not have mattered whether it was that or an old-style lever that I had to push. 4 November 2008 was a moment when I had to make physical contact with the voting machine and actually see my vote counted. I had to know that it was actually happening. And I needed to stand in line – in our case for two and a half hours – with hundreds of other African-Americans and wait patiently for a moment to influence history.

Irrespective of any reservations one might have regarding the proposed policies of President-Elect Obama (yeah, I get a kick out of writing and saying ‘President-Elect’) there is no question but that the election victory had a profound emotional impact on black America specifically, as well as this country generally. I can honestly say that I never expected to see a liberal black person elected president of the USA, and I was not sure that a conservative black person would be elected either. As the election returns were coming in my stomach was tied up in knots unlike anything that I have experienced since my daughter was born. I did not make predictions and I do not trust polls. More importantly, I did not trust the white electorate.

WHAT TO MAKE OF THE ELECTION?

In reviewing the stats from the election, the results are quite interesting. Obama won the popular vote by 52% compared with McCain's 46%. This is extremely significant and has not been replicated by a Democrat since Lyndon Johnson won the presidency in 1964. Nevertheless, what it also shows is that the USA is quite divided. That 46% of the vote that McCain won represented more than 55 million people. What is noteworthy is that while Obama won only 43% of the white vote, whites under the age of 30 backed him by a 66-32% margin. Latinos voted with Obama at a rate of 67% (an important increase over those who went with Kerry in 2004). Women voted with Obama at a rate of 55%, though he lost white women by 5% points (though this was better than Senator Kerry in 2004). It is also noteworthy that though Obama only received 45% of the veterans’ vote, compared with McCain's 54%, this remains significant in light of the red-baiting and terrorist-baiting that was being targeted at him. Additionally, union voters went with Obama at 60% compared with McCain’s 38%, a lower percentage than should have sided with Obama in light of the current economic crisis but which probably reflects racial divisions within the house of labour.

In my view, the election reflected several important concerns and tendencies:

- The economy: there is no question that the economic crisis had a significant impact on the electorate. 63% of voters indicated that the economy was a priority issue. McCain was never successful in crafting a message on the economy that resonated with the public
- Concern about the perception of the USA overseas: there was a sense among Obama supporters that there needed to be a change in the relationship of the USA to the rest of the world. This was, however, very unfocused
- A decline in the importance that voters attached to both the Iraq war and terrorism: with regard to Iraq this probably reflects a growing sense that the war is coming to an end and that the occupation is not a critical issue
- The next Supreme Court appointments: for 47% of the electorate this was a critical issue. This was a hot-button issue with liberals and progressives who have been watching the Supreme Court make increasingly indefensible decisions that reflect its right-wing course
- Race matters…sort of: particularly among younger voters, race was a less significant factor in influencing voter behaviour than among older voters. It is also apparently the case that the economic meltdown led many white voters to put racial concerns on the back burner. That said, the ‘racial neutrality’ of the Obama campaign took matters of racist oppression largely off the table for any significant discussion, a fact that may return to haunt the incoming administration.

Without question the Obama victory needs to be understood as a tribute to exceptionally good organisation, the initial positioning of Obama as, at least in the primaries, an anti-war candidate, the onset of the economic crisis, the candidate's continuous message of optimism, and Obama's ability to remain cool under fire.

ACT II: BEGINNING RIGHT NOW

The implications of the Obama victory will need to be unpacked over the coming weeks and months. That said, there are a few points worth noting because they will have strategic implications:

Obama's mandate is vague yet identifiable: the mandate he has received is to address the economic crisis immediately in a manner that favours regular working people. This is evident from the polls and from plenty of anecdotal information. In addition, the mandate involves changing the relationship of the USA to the rest of the world. This particular point is very unfocused but it is evident that the US voters are increasingly concerned about the perception of the USA overseas and what that means for matters of national security.

Most people were unfamiliar with the actual programmatic steps Obama is advocating on the economy, yet they were unwilling to be swayed by the red-baiting rhetoric of McCain and Palin. This may offer an opportunity for progressives to advance one or another variant of a redistributionist approach toward the crisis.

With regard to foreign policy, this is extremely complicated and quite troubling. While Obama has emphasised the need for negotiations as a first step in international relations, when confronted by forces to his right, he has tended to back down and often suggest highly questionable military and crypto-military options in handling crises, e.g., unilateral attacks on al-Qaeda bases in Pakistan. Some people around Obama seem to be advocating a get-tough approach towards Iran which itself could lead to hostilities. While the people of the USA, by and large, are not looking for more war, the ability of the political Right to manufacture the ever-present threat from right-wing Islamists (including but not limited to targeting Iran) has successfully promoted a climate of fear. This will, more than likely, be a weak point for the president-elect and a place where pressure must be placed by anti-war forces.

The world is expecting a great deal from an Obama administration: all corners of the earth erupted in glee upon news of the Obama victory. Obama will more than likely reach out to traditional US allies in order to repair the damage done by the eight years of the Bush administration. There will more than likely be outreach to Africa, though the character of that outreach is as yet to be determined. Obama, while Senator, expressed a great deal of interest and concern with Africa, and developed legislation focussing on the ongoing crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He will probably try to alter the relationship of the US to Africa, though it is not entirely clear how thorough such an alteration will be. One should expect outreach to the African Union to offer support in cases of humanitarian disasters and crises, but unless Obama is prepared to break with the whole ‘war against terrorism framework’ there may be continued militarisation of the continent (through vehicles such as AFRICOM and the Trans-Sahel Military Initiative).

Progressives will need to perfect an approach of ‘critical support’ towards the Obama administration: the corporate backers of President-Elect Obama have no interest in a transformative agenda. They are interested in stabilising capitalism generally, but especially stabilising the financial sector. They are open to selective nationalisations as long as such nationalisations do not bring with them significant popular accountability. In light of this, progressive forces will need to be organised in such a way to mount a challenge from the left side of the aisle. President Obama will need to be pushed on many areas, including foreign policy, healthcare, housing, jobs, and in general, the need for a pro-people approach to addressing the economic crisis. Taking this approach of critical support means, tactically, pointing out what has not been accomplished in the Obama agenda on the one hand, and, on the other, challenging the new administration when it advances policies that are regressive, e.g., threatening Iran or Cuba, or compromising with the insurance companies on healthcare.

Critical support also means raising issues that the Obama administration may tend to shy away from or avoid altogether, such as race and racism. Race is fused into the US system. Racist oppression and the differential in treatment between people of colour and whites remains a major part of the US reality. For that reason, progressives must push the Obama administration to address the continuing impact of racist oppression. This may lead to clashes that at one and the same time appear to be tactical, i.e., matters of timing, but are actually quite fundamental, that is, about whether there needs to be a systemic challenge to racist oppression.

None of this happens in the absence of organisation. Those who rallied to the Obama campaign came from various political tendencies and experiences, and many of them will seek to return to their ‘everyday life.’ At the same time, there are those who mobilised that are looking to be part of implementing the ‘dream’ and they will be unable to do this as individuals operating alone. If one really wants to advance an approach of critical support for the incoming administration, it will mean creating the grassroots organisational structures around the country that are capable of educating and mobilising the millions of people who are seeking a new direction. This approach, what I have described elsewhere as a neo-rainbow approach, can be used to exert pressure to ensure that the incoming Obama administration lives up to its full potential.

So many of us cried with joy and amazement on the evening of 4 November with this historic breakthrough. Our excitement cannot rest with the electoral success but must be fused with a genuine effort to create a new politics.

* Bill Fletcher Jr. is the executive editor of BlackCommentator.com and a senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies. He is the immediate former president of the TransAfrica Forum and the co-author of ‘Solidarity Divided’ which analyses the crisis in organized labour in the USA.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

It is humbling and unsettling attempting to appraise the significance of an icon, especially at the time of that icon's 90th birthday. Nevertheless, we must honor Nelson Mandela while at the same time situating him in a broader and complicated context.

In important respects there are several different 'Nelson Mandelas.' For many of us who were active in and around the anti-apartheid support movement, Nelson Mandela became the face of the South African liberation struggle. This was true not only for activists, but also for much of the rest of the sympathetic world. In this respect the campaign to free him was much more than a demand for the freedom of one individual, but represented a mass means of protesting the illegitimacy and injustice of the apartheid regime.

The 'second' Nelson Mandela was the post-prison/pre-president Mandela. Here we witnessed Nelson Mandela serving as the hero, negotiator, and unifier. Taking charge of the African National Congress's efforts to bring about democratic rule, he, ultimately, decided upon significant compromises that ended apartheid. Mandela should not be credited or criticized for the decisions of this era as if they were done by one individual alone. The ANC had concluded that a military victory over the apartheid regime was unlikely and, with the collapse of the Soviet bloc, a new international political situation had emerged. The 1994 democratic elections are a tribute to the work of Mandela and the ANC leadership, but the compromises that were made during the period of negotiations were controversial. Political rule was turned over to the Black majority, but the economy remained largely in the hands of the whites who had dominated the country.

The 'third' Nelson Mandela could be seen during his term as President of South Africa. While steps were taken immediately to eliminate all vestiges of the apartheid regime, the ANC--under his leadership--chose to reject a previous progressive economic development approach and, instead, institute a very pro-privatization/pro-"free market" program known as "Growth, Employment and Redistribution" (GEAR). GEAR turned the entire pre-liberation approach of the ANC on its head and instead emphasized integrating South Africa into the capitalist global market, removing trade barriers, and promoting privatization. It did little to address the mammoth wealth divide in the country or the burning land question (which would later explode in neighboring Zimbabwe). Although GEAR is often blamed on (or credited to, depending on one's point of view) then Deputy (and now current) President Thabo Mbeki, the reality is that it was under the watch of President Nelson Mandela that South Africa opted in a direction that many international observers and friends found surprising and unsettling. It should be added that during this time period, President Mandela, despite the pressure of the USA and others to repudiate friends of South African freedom such as Cuba and Libya, stood firm and attempted to strengthen the forces in the global South advocating peace and self-determination. Nevertheless, South Africa was increasingly drawn into the web created by global capitalism, inhibiting its ability to complete what the ANC had described as the "national democratic revolution."

The 'fourth' Nelson Mandela is the post-Presidency Mandela. Generally speaking he has been an outspoken human rights advocate taking very strong and public stands against the US invasion of Iraq, as well as stands against his successor--Mbeki--on the failure of the South African government to fully confront the HIV/AIDS pandemic. He has been among a group of world leaders, such as former US President James (Jimmy) Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who have spoken out on behalf of human rights, whether in the Darfur region of the Sudan or in occupied Palestine. Mandela, though weakening with age, has reemerged as a beacon of hope and struggle for true justice.

All this said, it is important for us to recognize that the triumphs and challenges faced by Nelson Mandela are illustrative of the contradictions we are living through with the collapse of what Egyptian theorist Samir Amin terms the "national populist projects." This is an expression referring to the post-World War II efforts at national independence and liberation in the so-called Third World that chose not to travel down the path toward socialism, but also attempted to be non-aligned in the Cold War. The crisis, to which Amin refers, hit South Africa in the mid1990s over the question of the path toward reconstruction and development. The leadership of the African National Congress apparently concluded that it had to cut the best deal that it could with global capitalism and that charting a truly independent and transformative path was unrealistic. Many people inside and outside South Africa hoped--and continue to hope--for a different conclusion and different route.

Nevertheless, Nelson Mandela remains my hero. Precisely because Mandela is human, rather than a god, he is not perfect and not above contradictions. He has been, however, a voice for rationality in a world that seems to increasingly succumb to the irrational; a voice for justice, in a world that often seems to tolerate some of the worst forms of injustice. He has also been a person of tremendous courage who resisted pressures to give up or to despair that many others would not have been able to withstand. For whatever else he will always be the Nelson Mandela imprinted on my old--but preserved--anti-apartheid poster: Defiant and dignified always.

Happy birthday, comrade Mandela!

*Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the executive editor of BlackCommentator.com. He is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies and the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum. He is the co-author of the recently published "Solidarity Divided" which analyzes the crisis of organized labor in the USA.

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Bill Fletcher looks at the hypocrisy surrounding the United States' misadventures into Somalia.

Bush’s so-called war against terrorism entered a further, cynical stage with the recent classification of a Somali group as alleged ‘terrorists’. Al Shabab, the military wing of the Union of Islamic Courts, was declared by the US State Department to be a terrorist organisation. The Bush administration claims that ‘some’ members of Al Shabab are affiliated with Al Qaeda.

In order to understand the cynicism of this move it is important to remember that Somalia was a basket case for over a decade after the overthrow of the dictator Siad Barre. Filled with clan-based warlords, the country had no stable government. An international attempt to forge a transitional national government resulted in no further stability or end to the violence. The rise of a right-wing Islamist group known as the Union of Islamic Courts, however, brought about a period of relative stability and internal peace. While the group was and is ultra-conservative in many of its tenets, it was successful in crushing or co-opting many of the warlords. Further, it was an indigenous group to Somalia and not an arm of another country or an external social movement.

Using the pretext of an alleged - and unproven - connection between the Union of Islamic Courts and Al Qaeda, Ethiopian troops - encouraged and backed by the Bush administration - invaded Somalia in 2006 with the stated objective of supporting the Transitional Federal Government, an institution that was on its last legs and had little support within the population. Although the Ethiopians defeated the UIC in formal battle, the situation in Somalia devolved into guerrilla war and chaos. It has been going downhill ever since.

Al Shabab, whether one supports them or not, is an armed resistance movement. It has been carrying out military actions against troops of the country that invaded Somalia. One does not have to support the UIC or the actions of Al Shabab to recognise that a people have a right to oust those who invade their land.

The Bush administration’s action in classifying Al Shabab as ‘terrorists’ further complicates an already difficult situation. Instead of recognising that Al Shabab is the military wing of a legitimate movement, classifying them as alleged terrorists makes efforts towards a political resolution of the conflict unlikely, if not nearly impossible, just as has happened in Iraq. One does not have to like Al Shabab, or agree with its objectives, as long as it can be demonstrated on the ground that it is a movement that has a real constituency and is militarily confronting an occupying army.

The Bush administration, as it has done in other parts of the world, e.g. in Turkey with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), or in the Philippines with the Communist Party of the Philippines (and their New People’s Army), selectively chooses when to classify an insurgency or resistance as terrorists, based almost solely according to whether the target of the insurgency/resistance is a friend of the Bush administration. In the case of Somalia, the Ethiopians are doing the bidding of the Bush administration as well as serving their own regional ambitions.

There is another piece to this which is worth noting. Throwing around the label of ‘terrorist’ is also aimed at suppressing dissent here at home in the USA. Whether one is a Somali émigré, Somali American, or simply someone who supports Somalia’s right to national self-determination, the label of terrorist has a chilling effect on one’s willingness to speak out. As witnessed during the Cold War with the manner in which the charge of ‘communist sympathiser’ was used to suppress dissent, the suggestion that someone is either soft on terrorism or, worse, aiding and abetting an alleged terrorist group shuts down all reasonable discussion.

So, let’s be clear: the Bush administration is not interested in reasonable discussion. We, however, should be, so we need to push back against this latest outrage.

*Bill Fletcher Jr. is executive editor of The Black Commentator where this article first appeared [www.blackcommentator.com">. He is also a senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies and the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Much of Black America stopped discussing Zimbabwe after its liberation in 1980; at least, we stopped discussing it for a while. After years of regular coverage of the liberation war, details regarding Zimbabwe became harder to obtain as attention shifted to struggles in Mozambique, Namibia, Angola and South Africa. Not to be misunderstood, it was not that facts were being withheld for us here in Black America, so much as we paid less attention to developments, and did not dig for information.

President Robert Mugabe, the leader of ZANU (later ZANU [PF]) was, of course, a hero to so many of us insofar as he was the main, though not only, leader of the liberation struggle. He seemed, at least at first, to be oriented toward the development of an independent and, at least theoretically, socialist-oriented Zimbabwe, with land redistribution, workers’ control, and black power all on the agenda.

So many of us chose to ignore developments, however. We ignored purges that had taken place within ZANU prior to Liberation. We ignored the violent crushing of a rebellion in the early years of the Mugabe administration. We ignored President Mugabe’s adoption of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank formula of “structural adjustment”, despite its economic theory running contrary to a pro-people economic transformation. And, we ignored the fact that the land was not being redistributed. We ignored this and other unsettling matters while the focus of much of Black America was on events unfolding in other parts of Southern Africa.

It was only after the seizures of white farms in 2000 that a new discussion of Zimbabwe emerged, albeit a much distorted one. For many it was as if they had jumped through a time portal between 1980 and 2000, oblivious to the development of the country and the challenges that it had encountered. President Mugabe, it seemed to many, was finally seizing the land and completing Liberation…at least, that is what many of us thought. But what was missing was a broader context to understand developments and too many well-intentioned African Americans interpreted Zimbabwean developments through our lens here on the opposite side of the Atlantic. Instead of reviewing the actual developments on the ground, many of us fell prey to interpreting facts based on what we would have liked to have believed was unfolding rather than what was actually playing out.

Many well-intentioned supporters of Zimbabwe ignored or were oblivious to the growing protests that had swept Zimbabwe in the 1990s among workers who stood in opposition to the economic policies of structural adjustment that were impoverishing them. We were further prepared to ignore, or forget, that President Mugabe had been quite delayed in taking steps to redistribute the land in the first place, even factoring in that the British and USA reneged on pledges that they had made to subsidize a “willing seller, willing buyer” land transfer. And some of us closed our eyes to who was actually benefiting from land redistribution and who was not.

In 2003, several African American activists - including this writer - penned a letter of protest against the policies of President Mugabe. Each of us had been supporters of ZANU (PF) and had been reluctant to voice public criticisms. Our criticisms were aimed at the repression being conducted against opponents of the Mugabe administration and their supporters. We also questioned how - but not whether - land was being redistributed and who was gaining from this. We made it abundantly clear that our criticisms bore no resemblance, in either form or content, to those voiced by US President Bush and British then-Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The response we received was, let’s say, quite remarkable. Some pro-Mugabe individuals and organizations, despite knowing the histories and work of the signatories, declared us to be CIA agents and/or agents of the US State Department (a difference without a distinction for our critics). Some people even went so far as to suggest that we were being paid by the Zimbabwean opposition. We were vilified for even questioning what was transpiring in Zimbabwe, even though in some cases we had first hand knowledge of brutal repression.

The other response was just as interesting. Quietly we were applauded by many African Americans who were pleased that someone(s) had spoken up, though they, themselves, were not necessarily prepared to publicly do so. While this was encouraging, it was equally unsettling in that it evidenced a fear within Black America about having a genuine debate on such an important issue.
Nevertheless, in the aftermath of this verbal/written slugfest, little real exchange took place. The atmosphere had become so charged that many people decided that it was not worth saying one more thing about Zimbabwe. Rather, too many of us just sat back and watched in silence.

So, we watched. Colleagues of mine in Zimbabwe, individuals whose progressive work I was familiar with, were jailed and tortured by the Mugabe administration, but I was expected by pro-Mugabe activists in the USA to say nothing, and indeed, to deny everything. Any hint of criticism was immediately construed as allegedly giving aid and comfort to the Bush administration and its mania for regime change. In a brief visit to Zimbabwe I had the opportunity of speaking with a group of Black Zimbabwean trade unionists. I found myself attempting to explain to them why many African Americans were silent in the face of President Mugabe’s repression, or in some cases, actively supported President Mugabe. They shook their heads in collective disbelief.

Over the last two weeks we have seen events surrounding the Zimbabwean election and it feels surreal. I must, however, ask some tough questions. What does it mean that an incumbent administration fails to reveal the ACTUAL election results, yet demands a recount? One need not be a supporter, and I am not, of the principal opposition party in Zimbabwe - the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) under Morgan Tsvangirai - to sense that all is not right with the world following the election. One’s attitude toward the MDC should actually be secondary to whether one believes in the notion of free and fair elections. To put it bluntly, if one is going to call elections, they should be transparent; if one does not want transparent elections, don’t call them in the first place.

The MDC is politically inconsistent, and outside of Zimbabwe there are very mixed feelings about them within Southern Africa. Though originally planned as a labor party, the MDC became a sort of united front of opponents of President Mugabe, ranging the political spectrum from the revolutionary Left to some conservative white farmers. The economic views of the MDC are themselves difficult to ascertain at various moments. But this is a matter for the people of Zimbabwe to resolve. Whether we like or dislike the MDC, or President Mugabe for that matter, holds second place to whether there is a political environment that advances genuine, grassroots democracy and debate in Zimbabwe. If that environment does not exist, then all of the revolutionary rhetoric in the world will not amount to a hill of beans on the scale of things.

The Zimbabwe political crisis threatens to go from bad to worse. A reenactment of the events in Kenya following their stolen election a few short months ago is not beyond imagination. The role of the African Union, and particularly Zimbabwe’s neighbors, becomes all the more important in attempting to resolve the crisis. Threats by Britain and the USA are not only counterproductive, but they are insulting since the administrations of neither country possesse the moral authority to actually entertain or offer a positive solution. But supporting the African Union would be a positive step.

There is something that I believe that African Americans can and should do, and in some respects it might represent an important chapter in our continuing relationship with Zimbabwe. This is a variation on a proposal I made once before. We should offer to assist the African Union in mediating the talks toward a peaceful resolution of the on-going crisis. Specifically, the Congressional Black Caucus should contact the African Union and offer to constitute a mediating team to work with the African Union. This should not be interference and should not be construed as interference, but it could be a genuine act of solidarity.

Within Black America, we have to be prepared to have more open and constructive debates without resorting to the “nuclear option.” I have seen a variant of this in the discussions surrounding the candidacy of Senator Obama. Someone voicing a reservation or concern, let alone a criticism, is open to being called everything but a child of God. This infantile approach to controversy WITHIN our community must end; indeed, it must not be tolerated. The stakes are far too high.

Let me apologize to some in advance: I cannot maintain silence for fear of upsetting an opponent. As I said, the stakes are too high.

*Bill Fletcher, Jr. is Executive Editor of The Black Commentator (www.blackcommentator.com) where this article first appeared. He is also a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies and the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org