Prepared by Monsour Owolabi
The need for liberated zones for New Afrikans and other historically oppressed peoples is ever-present in today’s social, political, and economic climate, where We find ourselves at war with Amerikkkan imperialism. The term “liberated zone” originates in the context of guerrilla warfare, describing the act of insurgent forces seizing control of a particular geographical location from their opposition. New Afrikans today must realize that We are and have been at war; as such, We must work to liberate land and territory from this ugly monster known as the united states so that We can build safe havens for New Afrikans and all oppressed people who love dignity and humanity.
“New Afrikan” refers to the descendants of enslaved Afrikan people, who were kidnapped from Our continent (the Motherland) due to specific historical processes shaped by the Maafa (Swahili for “Great disaster,” referring to the African Holocaust, which includes the transatlantic slave trade). Our Motherland, not as a static place in the distant past, but as one in a continual process of development — one which parallels the material process of development undergone by New Afrikans on the North Amerikkkan continent and elsewhere throughout the Western hemisphere. The New Afrikan regards the Motherland as existing not in the past, but in the present; not only as a place to identify with, but to learn from, observing how continental Africans continue to resist the material forces of colonialism, environmental pollution, state-backed terror and dispossession of land and resources on their land.
The course of New Afrikan struggle in North America has been subject to the trauma of centuries of white supremacy to the point in which it has become “normalized.” New Afrikan efforts to free themselves from continued racial socio-economic oppression and political repression has been monumental in many respects, up from Slavery into the 21st century, despite persistent efforts to annihilate New Afrikan people as they did the Indigenous population of Amerikkka (Turtle Island). The current white supremacist efforts to re-enslave New Afrikans via policies leading to mass incarceration is deliberate and intentional. We must oppose oppose mass incarceration with mass liberation, to liberate the masses of our people from racist colonial and neocolonial subjugation (Muntaqim, “People’s Programs”)
The Fifth Ward community of Houston, Texas, was one of the first liberated zones established by and for New Afrikans in 1865. For these ancestors, recently freed from chattel slavery and now finding themselves caught in a new struggle over land and political power in the Battle of Reconstruction, war was not a distant memory but a lived reality. As such, the first residents of Fifth Ward established independent networks and institutions across all industries necessary to sustain human life and dignity, including schools, churches, food production, security networks, housing, and of course political representation and grassroots engagement.
However, Amerikkkan neocolonialism disrupted the sovereignty of 5th Ward by forcing New Afrikan residents to become dependent on US corporations and political systems for survival. The signs of Amerikkkan neocolonialism include substandard education, shelter unfit for human habitation, landfills and trash piles next to homes and schools, high unemployment rates, and electoral politicians who promise one thing but always prioritize private and corporate interests over those of the people.
Recently, The Monsour Freedom Campaign produced a pamphlet called “A Silent Genocide” which discusses the historical and social forces that caused and are still causing the genocidal conditions that so many New Afrikan people continue to endure to this day, including in Fifth Ward. Specifically, this pamphlet highlights the long-standing issue of cancer clusters proliferating across this neighborhood, due to a chemical called creosete used to treat the wooden ties on the railroad that ran through Fifth Ward for decades. Over the years, this chemical has seeped into the soil and ground water, and has resulted in vastly disproportionate rates of cancer among Fifth Ward residents, many of whom are New Afrikan.
In order to address this issue, the pamphlet also proposes mobilizing Fifth Ward residents to seek reparations for the environmental harm done to them, rather than accept the city of Houston’s proposal to relocate (read: displace) them from their land. This is just one example of a decolonization program – a vision for how New Afrikan people can diminish and eventually eliminate their dependence on Amerikkkan colonial institutions for their survival – a false survival that is in reality killing us. In the following pages, We wish to put forth a proposal for a number of similar decolonization programs that the New Afrikan community of Fifth Ward can consider and adapt as one tool to enact their own liberation and to be their own liberators.
Decolonization is the only solution to Our continued dependency on these colonial institutions. Decolonization is the process of restoring Our sovereignty as a people by establishing a revolutionary culture, engaging in solidarity with other oppressed peoples, and becoming independent of Amerikkkan neocolonial systems by restoring Our community and environment. Our responsibility as New Afrikans is to establish Programs for Decolonization that encompasses the strategic and tactical goals to achieve independence.
The Front for the Liberation of the New Afrikan Nation (FROLINAN), is the consummate liberatory efforts of Black resistance to over 400 years of white supremacy and settler-colonial capitalist imperialism. The Front for the Liberation of the New Afrikan Nation (FROLINAN), is the national organized determination under the guiding principle of the Three Phase Theory of National Independence and Decolonization Programs to liberate New Afrika, to free the land establishing our sovereign independent nation. At this time, in this moment of history, our collective task is the decolonization of our peoples psychological dependence on the misanthropic white supremacist settler-capitalist socio-economic system of misgovernment. To become independent of white supremacy – the miscreant of humanity, and empower New Afrikans to unite for their own national liberation and independence. (Muntaqim, People’s Programs)
FROLINAN is not a new creation; rather, it embodies the long-standing aims of the New Afrikan masses to be free and sovereign. These are aspirations that have existed since we were first forced into conditions of slavery and colonization. FROLINAN represents the historical continuity of struggle, carried forward by the people and expressed through the various organizations that have emerged over time. It is also internationalist, adapting the lessons of the FLN (National Liberation Front of Algeria), PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), and FRELIMO (Mozambique Liberation Front) to name a few, and applies them to the historical context of the New Afrikan liberation struggle.
It builds upon the heroic act of the formation of the Republic of New Afrika, but it also has an analysis of the current state of the New Afrikan Independence Movement and puts forth a concrete plan and methodology to develop independence for New Afrikan people, and actualize the Republic of New Afrika. FROLINAN’s existence is not external to the people—it is, and has always been, embedded within the very DNA of the New Afrikan masses. It is not imposed from above; it is born from deep within the soil and rises from the ground.
1. The National Union of New Afrikan Workers (NUNAW) is a national network of New Afrikan political activists in urban and rural areas, who function on the organizing principle of FROLINAN in the work place.
2. The National Alliance of New Afrikan Students (NANAS) is a national network of New Afrikan student groups and activists function under the auspices of FROLINAN’s Program for Decolonization. It will be the responsibility of NANAS to formulate a national direction on school campuses across the country, to support the development of the NAIM; to have New Afrikan history programs established, taught and maintained by professionals who are in support of the Independence Movement, and to have New Afrikan students become more aware of their responsibility in the independence movement, by organizing tutoring courses in high school and building liberation schools in the ghetto/barrio. In the 5th Ward context the local Alliance of New Afrikan students can begin working to return control of the school system to community control and out of state control.
3. The building of the New Afrikan Independence Academy (NAIA) is the essential tool with which FROLINAN broadens its organizing ability in the New Afrikan community. The NAIA is the needed liberation schools established for the purpose of teaching and training New Afrikan youth, adults, and members of FROLINAN in the political direction of the independence movement.
4. The Panther Youth Corps (PYC) is FROLINAN’s preteen and young adult youth organization whose main activity is to learn the foundation in which the independence movement is being organized.
5. The New Afrikan Children Centers (NACC) are child day care centers established by FROLINAN and operated by members of the oppressed New Afrikan community and FROLINAN organizers.
6. The New Afrikan Community Health Clinics (NACHC) are institutions established in the New Afrikan community for which preventative medicine will be the primary method of operation. The clinics will serve the New Afrikan community in regard to dentistry, abortion, drug rehabilitation, rape crises, acupuncture, hypertension, stress and other forms of physical and mental complications New Afrikans suffer and find common in their communities. It will also be the responsibility of the health clinics to formulate cancer research and prevention programs specifically in Fifth Ward as a central health awareness campaign in the Liberated Zone. These New Afrikan Community Health Clinics are essential tools by which We will serve a particular interest in the community as part of the campaign to combat genocides in health care New Afrikans suffer in Fifth Ward and around the country. It is Our position that We as a nation must have responsible, trained, professional doctors and medics to fill the various positions that these clinics will serve.
7. The New Afrikan Food Co-op Program (NAFCOP) is a FROLINAN project to organize members of the New Afrikan community to unite in cooperative economic planning in securing wholesale produce and food stuff. With the development of food co-ops and the socio-economic interaction of members of the community, the community will formulate working relationships for the improvement of the entire group. This is also the basic means in which We will educate New Afrikans of the ideals of community responsibility, development, and survival during the course of the independence movement. Efforts will be made to develop farming cooperatives, whereby agriculture will be used in the supplying of food co-ops in urban areas. The establishment of food co-ops will ensure the growth and development of Our national program and strategy. These food co-ops will strengthen the political determination of the need to free the land as an essential and recognized objective, as New Afrikans understand the need for us to feed ourselves. The food co-ops will become a practical organizing tool both politically and organizationally, a central foundation to serve other aspects of FROLINAN’s national strategy, such as the free breakfast for school children. It is when New Afrikan food co-op markets are established, comprising hundreds of community co-op groups through the New Afrikan community, that FROLINAN will be able to gauge the strength of its political determination in organizing New Afrikans under the auspices of its national program towards self government and independence.
8. The New Afrikan Community Alert Patrol (NACAP) will become a network of New Afrikan women and men organized for the defense of the New Afrikan community. It will establish security patrols against vigilantes, killer cops, racists, and black on black crime. These New Afrikans will be trained in police tactics and codes to protect the New Afrikan community in patrols as security guards. They will compile information and intelligence of high crime areas that are frequented by outsiders; they will be responsible for the protection of our senior citizens and youth as well as various political programs, demonstrations, etc. Members of NACAP will be trained in martial arts, weapons, drilling, police science, crowd control, and military science encompassing guerrilla warfare. One of the primary goals of FROLINAN’s political program is to have the colonial government occupation army (police) withdraw from the New Afrikan community. But in order to gain the support of New Afrikans in this endeavor, it it essential that community residents feel safe and confident.
9. The New Afrikan POW Assistance Program (NAPOWAP) will be developed to assure that New Afrikan captives are assisted in their efforts to be released from prison. Such assistance will be formulated in legal support in defense of our captured, pre-release programs for those about to be released on parole or discharged, political assistance in building programs and campaigns of national impact concerning the prison movement, and when possible, financial aid for the family of captives. In the past, the prison movement has lent significant political support to the general independence movement. Many of those captured had been principle leaders in the movement on the streets. Where they might be able to continue to give leadership and enhance the development of independence movement, it will be the responsibility of the NAPOWAP to ensure they are provided the essential assistance in mutual regard to the independence movement and FROLINAN’s Program for Decolonization. Emphases will be given to the development of national campaigns for amnesty and or exchange of Political Prisoners of War, the ending of prison slavery and repeal of the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitutions as it upholds prison slavery, call for the unionization of prisoner’s labor and minimum wage remuneration for their labor, call for the release of the New Afrikan Prisoners nationally, for them to return to the national territory of Kush and support the agricultural development of the New Afrikan nation, for the immediate end of Death by Incarceration and for the release of New Afrikans in military prisons. All of this is part of the Program for Decolonization and Ten Point Program.
10. The National Organization of New Afrikan Women (NONAW) will become a national network of New Afrikan women organized under the auspices of FROLINAN’s political direction. The express purpose of NONAW will be to fulfill the Program for Decolonization and to address the problems affecting New Afrikan women in general.
Decolonization Programs are what provides the New Afrikan community with the necessary structure and organization that starts the process of nation building. They are the institutions that once that revolution is won, will lay the foundation for the immediate success of the Republic of New Afrika.
It is necessary that the grassroots New Afrikan organizations are mobilized towards class struggle in favor of New Afrikan independence, community control, and land sovereignty for the people of Fifth Ward.
The longer We’ve remained dependent on these Amerikkkan institutions, the more alienated We’ve become from each other as people, ensnared in Our own individual pursuits. As a consequence of this alienation, Our work is done in a vacuum, largely responsive to one issue or another, and hardly ever deals with the root aspects of a particular contradiction. Not only that, but We have many organizations and people all separately working on the same issue, from a defensive posture; yet none of them are working in unison, therefore weakening each other’s chances of real success.
The creation of decolonization programs is where the New Afrikan Nation develops the operational and material power to challenge the greatest enemy humanity has known over the past 500 years. These programs form the heart of the struggle, and FROLINAN serves as the veins that connect different organizations, creating a unified front capable of halting the bloodshed of oppression. If our struggle is to have a heartbeat, it must have veins through which its lifeblood can flow. (Muntaqim, People’s Programs)
The key to FROLINAN’s success lies in strong cadres, as a front cannot exist without established revolutionary organizations that have built decolonization programs in their communities. One cannot leap to forming a front without first having cadres operational in different locales. Thus, it is incumbent upon organizers to think locally while aligning with a national strategy that, in turn, requires an international perspective. It is up to the people and existing New Afrikan cadres to operationalize FROLINAN and fulfill our historic task of freeing the land. This task is both humanitarian in nature and essential for giving the world a chance to be free from the imperialist war machine of the u.s.!
The Three Phase Theory for National Independence (Class Struggle for National Unity, National Unity for Self-Government, Self-Government for National Independence), establishes the theoretical foundation by which we will structure and shape our struggle into a coherent political platform and determination to free the land. The National Strategy of FROLINAN provides the organizational goals to be achieved establishing Decolonization Programs across the country to ensure fair exchange of resources and information that educate, agitate, organize and mobilize New Afrikans for actual and complete liberation. (Muntaqim, People’s Programs)
