Student Conference 2009
Uhuru students and comrades,
The African Internationalist Student Organization is calling for you to participate in the next student conference in Toronto, Canada on Februrary 6-7, 2009, next year's theme will be Africans at the Crossroads: Revolution or Perish. Make sure that you play your role in creating history by attending this dynamic and revolutionary conference. AISO is writing you with the urgency of bringing students back into the revolutionary process, which was defeated militarily by the U.S. colonial state in the late 1960s. This is a period in which white power is suffering a serious crisis, which is rooted in the uprising of oppressed people throughout the world reclaiming their resources and struggling for control over their own lives.
Students, who represent the highest aspirations of African people, must be determined to use their skills and resources to forward the African revolution, develop the African world, and deepen the crisis of imperialism. During the 1960’s, students played an integral role in the struggle for black power. Unfortunately, due to the military defeat of the Black Power Revolution of the 1960s Africans were pushed out of political life.
This attack on Africa and African people manifested itself in the assassinations of some of the movement's brightest and most courageous leaders such as, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Bobby Hutton and Patrice Lumumba, just to name a few. Some of the most prominent leaders of the African Liberation Movement were incarcerated, while even more were tortured and/or forced into exile.
One aspect of the military defeat of the Black Power Revolution was the elevation by white power of a sector of the African petty-bourgeoisie or middle class to institutions of authority or prominence, often in the government. This process of elevation of the black middle class happened while white power continued to control the economy of the country and the economic life of black people. White rule through these black “leaders” is referred to as indirect rule or neo-colonialism.
These combined efforts to crush the revolutionary aspirations of black people, which is referred to as counterinsurgency, was also at play on college and university campuses. This allowed for the neo-colonialists to return to the campuses and silence the students while the U.S. was terrorizing Africans in the community. This served various purposes in which the U.S. succeeded in pushing the masses out of political life.
The two primary purposes served by the extension of the counterinsurgency to the campuses were, separating the students from the African community and transforming the revolutionary energy and curiosity of the students into mere cultural practitioners and information hoarders of African History.
As a result of the lack of practical involvement with revolutionary organization and process, the resulting student formations of study groups and cultural movements became alien even amongst other students. Leaving these groups to be small segments of the campuses, detached from the conditions that Africans were facing within the world.
Left to these circumstances, potential revolutionaries who graduated from these institutions with great skills that could be used to develop the African world ended up selling their craft to the U.S. and other colonial governments in order to make a living.
For African people, this is a period of great danger, yet great opportunity. However, what will enable Africans to emerge from this period victorious is the work that revolutionaries do now. It is in this context that the African People's Socialist Party founded AISO on April 16, 2008.
Africans can no longer afford to be closed in on college and university campuses shut out from what is going on in the world. Students must use their skills to further the African revolution and deepen the crisis of imperialism. Also, individuals must organize themselves as students with the intention of contributing to a new period in history, a period in which the African world will know freedom, dignity, and pride.
Next year's student conference hosted by AISO with the theme of, Africans at the Crossroads: Revolution or Perish, is scheduled to be held in Toronto, Canada on February 6-7, 2009. It will be two days full of speaking and performances as well as strategizing and organizing for self-determination. AISO is calling on all freedom-loving Africans to endorse and participate in what is sure to be a historical event. For more information on the conference that will build AISO and contribute to the movement please contact AISO at info@aisouhuru.org or call 905-965-9288.
In unity and struggle,
Odion Osegyefo
President of AISO