Marc Lamont Hill: Peace family, you are listening to The Classroom and the Cell podcast. This is your brother, Marc Lamont Hill, and I am joined by…
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Your other brother, Mumia. Abdu Jamal.
Marc Lamont Hill: Mumia, this has been a crazy week in global politics. Man, I’m watching rebellions go on in Haiti right now. You know people in the Haitian public, everyday citizens saying we’re going to push back against any attempt at UN intervention. Because, you know, as Imperial, we don’t want Western Imperialism invading us. We don’t need outside forces telling us what our agenda is or who our leaders are. I’m looking at Israel, and we just saw Iran strike targets; Israeli targets, in retaliation from Iranian targets being, being hit in, in Damascus.
Marc Lamont Hill: We are seeing some real resistance coming from different places, and the news stories are different. You don’t normally hear about Israel getting hit with a retaliatory strike. You don’t hear as much about Haitian people, although they’ve always fought for justice…
Facility recorded message: This a call from Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution, Mahanoy, this call is subject to recording and monitoring.
Marc Lamont Hill: We’re hearing increasingly vocal and powerful kind of push-back to Western Imperialism everywhere. But what do you say?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Your other brother, Mumia. Abdu Jamal. Well, don’t forget what’s happening in the Sudan and in Mali and…
Marc Lamont Hill: Oh, yeah.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: You know, I think this is a potential. I mean, it’s too early to say, you know, potentially, like a decolonization or anti colonization period, being expressed in parts of the world that we thought were quiescent. You know, you get to a point you don’t expect to hear things from certain people, but people are people everywhere on the planet, and the spirit of resistance is generated by oppression, and people, you know, getting tired of that s—. And, you were talking about Haiti and the UN what, last time Blue Helmets came in, they left the trail of dysentery and disease.
Marc Lamont Hill: Right.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: So abuse of children, right? The so called peacekeepers did not respond peacefully to the needs and the wants of the Haitian people. So they, they have, it’s kind of like Black Americans in Tuskegee. They have experience, and therefore they don’t want to hear that we’re, you know, “We’re coming to help you”, you know, and I know, when colonialists come, they come to help themselves.
Facility recorded message: This a call from Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution, Mahanoy, this call is subject to recording and monitoring.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: When capitalists come, they come to exploit you and to profit, you dig, and also, we live. Think about this. All of us live now in a post Iraq world, and they remember how when Americans came in there with all that BS and those lies, weapons of mass destruction, yeah, they will greet us as liberators and throw flowers at it because we’re bringing freedom..(laughs)
Marc Lamont Hill: (laughs) Those fantasies.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Yeah, it was a that was a colonialist fantasy based on nothing other than masking our profiteering, you know. And you know, millions of dollars were made for Halliburton and every other company that could get a toehold in Iraq. But is Iraq better from that experience? No, this was, you know, foreign policy experts say this is the greatest foreign policy blunder in the history of the United States, and we’re talking about Iran. Think about this. Iran was isolated before the Iraq War, and because Iran is a Persian country, not an Arab country, they may be Muslim, but they’re Shia, right? A majority Shia community. Saddam Hussein, when he heard rumors and reports about his country being attacked, he said, No, you’re crazy. The Americans are not that stupid. They’ll never do that because it didn’t make sense to him. He knew that if, if he got knocked off the Shias who were held enthralled by his government’s power would break free. So Americans did bring liberation, but not the kind they intended. Because what they did is they created, what a Shia super state, right? The Iraq they created is mostly Shia in terms of government, and they’re closer to Iran than they are to the Americans, and they want the Americans out. So this is an interesting moment, is it not?
Marc Lamont Hill: Super interesting moment. And when I when I think about what’s possible, I’m excited, partly because, again, we’re starting to challenge taking for granted assumptions about how the world works, specifically the idea that UN peacekeeping forces are actually peacekeeping, when, in fact, one, the peace ain’t there because of Western Imperialism, and they’re not peacemaking either. Not only are not peacekeeping, they not peacemaking. So..
Mumia Abu-Jamal: That’s right.
Marc Lamont Hill: That’s important. The idea that you can resist Blue Helmets, you can resist boots on the ground from the UN is that most people didn’t, didn’t question as everyday citizens, we’re like, they’re crazy over there, and we need to come straighten it out. This idea that we need Western Power to quell the natives is something that we’re beginning to challenge. The fact that we’re beginning to really publicly recognize that the West doesn’t have the capacity to produce, it doesn’t have the capacity or the moral authority to impose peace or safety or justice, and to see people publicly challenging that and that it not just be common sense that’s a solution is amazing, right? The idea that we’re finally saying, yo, the US shouldn’t be picking other people’s leaders. More and more people are saying that. And then also, particularly on the Israel point. You know, the idea that someone has a right to strike back against a Western Power, whether Israel, US, France, Germany, look, people have a right to self defense, and it at least, is now part of the conversation, in a way that it wasn’t before.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: That’s right. Because we’re living in a transformed era. We’re seeing things that we have never seen before, right? You know, a lot of it, I think, is the degradation, right, of the West ,right, after Iraq. Think about this, America was, at least claimed to be, the only superpower in the world when the Iraq war started, you know? And what began with a big bang, right? Remember what they said? Shock and Awe. What began with a big bang ended with a whimper. And the same could be said about Afghanistan. They got their asses out of there, tout suite, with some quickness you dig?
Marc Lamont Hill: Yes sir, and yeah. Yeah.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Go, go.
Marc Lamont Hill: The difference is now with alternative media and grassroots voices and social platforms, it’s harder for them to re-narrate or misrepresent what happened. You know, there’s a generation of people that didn’t really understand we got our asses kicked in Vietnam. You know what I’m saying?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Right, right.
Marc Lamont Hill: Because , because of how the dominant narrative was able to frame it. But now that’s harder and harder to do. It’s harder and harder to talk about these struggles in ways that are one sided, because you have a multiplicity of voices that are narrating them, and that’s so important.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: That is important. You’re absolutely right, but you, we have a media that we did not possess before, and it’s de-centered in a way. Really, what we have is, in a real sense, for the first time in American history, democratic media. I don’t call it social media. I call it anti-social media because of its psychological effect on children and the damage it does, especially to young girls, right, who are bullied into suicide and what have you. But I do think it’s a democratic medium in that it is not de-centered. This is not the voice of Washington. This is not the voice of the government. This is not the voice of the corporate media. It’s other people doing research and reporting around the traditional corporate mediums, and they’re hitting people and they think about this; what changed Vietnam was the media. When people saw what was happening in their homes, they were like, “Oh, my God, this. Oh”, you know, it did two things. It built an anti-war movement that was impossible without the media, right? But it also educated Americans about all of the hell that was breaking loose in Vietnam right?
Marc Lamont Hill: Right.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Now, because of social media or democratic media or technological medium that is de-centered , people are seeing things in Gaza every day that are breaking not only heart but psyche, mind, perception, right? Israel has never been looked at today the way they are today. Ever, ever.
Marc Lamont Hill: Ever.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Ever, that’s a new thing. And while they have military power and they’re backed by the United States, right as a superpower, and I call them a regional hegemon in the Middle East, for sure, that does not make them popular or loved, but quite the reverse. People are looking at them as a bully. Yes, sir.
Marc Lamont Hill: And that’s how the tide changes. You know, it’s one thing to say these people are being harmed. They’re victims. You know, they’re engaging in self defense. When we feel that way about a nation or a people or a community or whatever, right? You know, you get public sympathy. But when people start to say, wait a minute, the US is the bully here, right, right? France is doing what? Germany’s doing what? Israel’s doing what? You know now, all of a sudden these nations are getting looked at differently.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: I must jet, because this brother wants to get on and the clock. I love you man, we’ll do it again soon if I can.
Marc Lamont Hill: We gonna do it, do it soon, Man. Love you, brother. I talk to you later in the week, on the move.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Give a hug to Malcolm for me.
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Marc Lamont Hill: Alright, family, you can listen to the Classroom in The Cell podcast with Mumia Abu-Jamal and Marc Lamont Hill. You catch all the episodes of The Classroom in the cell right on the Marc Lamont Hill official YouTube channel. You can download the audio, or you can listen to them and watch them online. Hit the like button so the algorithms know that you are in favor of this kind of radical political content, this type of beautiful political education. Let them know. Also hit the subscribe button so we can expand our network and our friendship circle. And of course, if you’re someone kind of, hit the join button and become a monthly subscriber of the channel, or go to Cash App or Venmo at, MLH TV, until next time on the move. Peace.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.