Mick: This is Mick, from the Columbia Encampment. It’s an honor to have you on here. Your message was so powerful. We played it at the encampment. I guess I’m just wondering if you have any words of wisdom or advice for students, going forward, as we kind of think about the future and the future of our organizing work.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: I would just say this, that it is I who am honored by how Columbia students have really politically analyzed the situation and proceeded to act with grace, class, and class consciousness. And, by that I say, many of the people who were charged, refused to take deals unless those same deals were extended to the CUNY people, the University of New York people. I know that Columbia is the premier university in New York and that CUNY is really a working class university. For Columbia radicals and students and protesters to take that position is just profoundly noble and human, just as the actual work protesting what can only be called a geographical violence in Gaza, a genocide. That’s a principled position, and you’re responding to that as human beings, feeling and sharing with the suffering people of the occupied lands that we call Gaza, that we call Palestine. So, keep on doing the work you’re doing. I think you know, you guys are walking along the right path of history in my opinion. You’re doing a great job.
Steph: Brother Mumia, may I ask a question?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Yes.
Steph: My name is Steph Reed. I’m a grad student at Union Theological Seminary, and in preparing for this moment I read some of your work, including Message to the Movement. In that, you talked about the importance of music in like, social movements and like, political struggle. My question for you is, in today’s context, which is in some ways similar right, and in other ways it’s different: I’m wondering your thoughts on the role of music, arts, culture, and spirituality in our current like, political climate.
Facility Recording: Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution, Mahanoy. This call is subject to recording and monitoring.
Steph: Could you speak more on that?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Different times require different musics, and different musics exist in different periods and rhythms of history. You know, during the Civil Rights Movement the great Negro spirituals were plumbed and used, and transformed during that movement. The Black Panther Party, a lot of people don’t know this, but the Black Panther Party during the Black Liberation Movement they had their own band (laughs). They had a pop band and the name of it was The Lumpen, and they were fantastic! But, what they did is they took the great hits of that period, changed the lyrics, and kind of radicalized it. They were a great band. They had great musicians. They were great singers, but not very many people heard them because they were very rarely on radio, or you know, but they would perform for Black Panther functions, mostly in Cali, and they were fantastic. This is a new period, this is a new time, and it’s a new technology. What that means is, if you have access to music that you did not have back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. So, you’re going to be listening to different kinds of music. But every movement needs music to move people. Right? To give them validation, but also to project the stories and the spirit of resistance that is sometimes encoded in music, you know. So, find what turns you on, and turn that s**t up.
Speaker 1: Mumia, what did it feel like to speak to students at the encampments, for you?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: It was wonderful. Wonderful. I felt, I felt something I haven’t felt in a really, really, good long time. I felt like these encampments and protests were a throwback to the 60s, you know. That was a long time ago, right? But a throwback because, back in the 60s, people were protesting against the Vietnam War, this great imperial war by the United States against a Third World country. This is not that situation, but it’s very similar because it is settler colonialism against an imprisoned people. You know, people call Gaza an open-air prison. Never is that clearer than here where people cannot escape the F18s, you know, the bombs, the weapons of empire, really being lodged against what is essentially an unarmed people. You know, ain’t no F14s in Gaza, flown by Gazans, right? It’s not that situation. It’s an imperial power play. And so, in that way it was similar, and I just felt a wonderful feeling of seeing students speak out against this kind of settler colonial violence. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing, and I felt energized.
Sophia: Hi. My name is Sophia. I’m a student, recent student with the MIT encampment and, again, just expressing so much gratitude that I was even able to kind of be in this space. It truly is an honor. One thing I’ve been kind of thinking about, and I think we talked a bit on the panel about the sustainability of these movements and, you know, how we’re all going to continue to organize beyond this moment. And as somebody who, you know, you have participated and beared [sic] witness to many movements across, over the years, and some movements, you know, have their times when there’s kind of a flare up and there’s more attention towards them, there’s a lot of energy, and then sometimes things die down. Then things flare up, then they die down, and we’ve kind of have this same kind of cycle that we’ve seen in the past. So, I’m wondering if you have any advice on how we can kind of think critically about how do we have sustainable movements, whether it’s fighting against cooptation, fighting against new state tactics, or even just fighting against the natural ebb and flow of organizing if we’re not being intentional about it.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Ok, what that takes is something that we do rarely see, except in rare occasions, and it’s really to organize, and that means to talk about ideology, talk about how to resist the tactics of the state. Think about Occupy. Some of you (laughs), some of you probably don’t even remember Occupy Wall Street. I do. And what people have forgotten is that these people were attacked, not just in the dead of night, but in the early hours of the morning when everybody was asleep, and the media turned off its cameras, and the police came in and beat people and intimidated people and ran them out. And that’s because they were occupying the most powerful entity in America: Capital! Wall Street! (laughs). So, you know, who works for Wall Street? Well, you know, the cops do, and they will use any tactic whatsoever to intimidate and break people, one from another. But the antidote to those tactics is unity; really talking with each other, listening to each other, and working to continue the unity of action that is rocking this country, and believe it or not, having repercussions around the world. People are studying this movement all around the world, not just eggheads like me and Dr. Fernandez. People are studying it because it’s a moment of freedom amidst repression. So, keep your voices loud, firm. Affirm your friendships with your comrades and brothers and sisters, and keep struggling because you’re doing something incredibly noble for a people that cannot do it for themselves.
Bisan: Ok, hi, I’m Bisan. I was with the [unclear] encampment, and it’s an honor for you to come to speak with us today. I’m going to ask my question real fast. Is there advice that you would give the students and the student movement, the things on like, what we can do better, or like, where do you think the student movement is going?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Well, because of your media – You know what? If Huey and Eldridge of the Black Panther Party had the social media that you have, we might have won (laughs). But because many of you are journalists, citizen journalists, and you have access to thousands and thousands of people, you have your own media. You cannot rely on the corporate media. You know this, but you have your own. And that means using your ability to reach out and touch people and tell them the stories of your daily lives, your daily work, so that people outside of the circle of students and grad students can learn and hear and support the work you’re doing, because what you’re doing is wonderful. I commend you all, whether you’re at MIT, whether you’re at Penn, whether you’re at Columbia, whether you’re at any university in America and doing this kind of work. It will be difficult. It will be hard. It will be challenging. Sometimes it may be terrifying. But what you’re doing is wonderful. Never doubt that. I commend all of you, and I thank you for the work you’re doing.
Multiple speakers: We commend you, Mumia. We love you so much. Absolutely. We love you.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: I love you all.
Facility Recording: Thank you for using Securis. Goodbye.
Speaker 2: Love you, brother.
These commentaries were recorded by Prison Radio.