From the Marvin X Archives: Revolution from Egypt to the Americas

Parable of the Parrot


for Ngugi Wa Thiong'o and the Pan African Revolution


The king wanted parrots around him. He wants his ministers to wear parrot masks. He said he had to do the same for the previous king. He only said what the king wanted to hear, nothing more, so he advised his ministers to do the same. In fact, they must encourage the people to become parrots. Yes, he wanted a nation of parrots.

Don't say anything the king does not want to hear. Everything said should be music to his ears. And don't worry, he will tell you exactly what he wants to hear in his regular meetings and public addresses to the nation. Everyone will be kept informed what parrot song to sing.

No one must be allowed to disagree with the king. This would be sacrilegious and punishable by death. The king must be allowed to carry out the dreams that come to his head. No one else should dream, only the king.

In this manner, according to the king, the people can make real progress. There shall always be ups and downs, but have faith in the king and everything will be all right.

Now everyone sing the national anthem, the king told the people. There must be a chorus of parrots, a choir, mass choir singing in perfect unity. Let there be parrots on every corner of the kingdom, in every branch and tree. Let all the boys sing like parrots in the beer halls.
Let the preacher lead the congregation in parrot songs. Let the teachers train students to sound like parrots.

Let the university professors give good grades to those who best imitate parrot sounds. Let the journalists allow no stories over the airwaves and in print if they do not have the parrot sound.

The king was happy when the entire nation put on their parrot masks. Those who refused suffered greatly until they agreed to join in.

The state academics and intellectuals joined loudly in parroting the king's every wish. Thank God the masses do not hear them pontificate or read their books. After all, these intellectual and academic parrots are well paid, tenured and eat much parrot seed. Their magic song impresses the bourgeoisie who have a vested interest in keeping the song of the parrot alive.

Deep down in the hood, in the bush, the parrot song is seldom heard, only the sound of the hawk gliding through the air in stone silence looking for a parrot to eat.
--Marvin X
4/5/10

6. Parable of Iraq

The war in Iraq has not begun. It shall begin when the Americans leave--now what day might that be? They are still in Germany, Japan, and elsewhere. They ain't in Vietnam, ha? But in Iraq, they have merely opened Pandora's box. As they draw down, the spirits shall dance in the desert winds.

The Shia have power they've never had before, not since before the martyrdom of their imams after the death of the prophet. The Shia say to hell with the democratic process, there shall be Shia power until they see fit to share power with the Sunnis, their oppressors and eternal theological enemy.

The Sunni must receive the big payback! They must suffer justice for the years of domination and destruction of Shia culture. Why should they share equal power after years of oppression. When a man beats his wife, he loses a certain power, his stature is reduced, his rights curtailed.
His wife will say, you blew it buddy. You're lucky I didn't kill you in your sleep. We have seen the sectarian battles in Iraq. But we ain't seen nothing yet. Of course the sectarian is in reality geo-political. The Sunni neighbors in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf States have no intention to allow Shia power to rule unobstructed, without sabotage at every turn, especially since the Shia are theological and geo-political brothers with Iran.

The Sunni will do as they have been doing since the US invasion: collaborate with the US, while at the same time undermine the Shia at every turn. The Shia can be destroyed because they are not considered real Muslims. Just as Sunni Muslims do not consider the Nation of Islam real Muslims. They barely accept the followers of Warthideem Muhammad as real Muslims, after all, what do niggers know about Islam? This racism is no different than Christian racism. One o'clock Friday is the most racist hour in Islam, just as eleven 0'clock Sunday is the most racist hour in Christianity.

The Sunni/Shia conflict is an eternal contradiction that cannot be resolved except by political domination, or politics by other means, as in war.

The Shia are in a mode of expansion, from Iran, through Iraq to Lebanon, or from the Tigris and Euphrates to the Mediterranean. The Sunni will attempt to block them, and the Zionist and Christian America shall assist as they are doing at this hour.

They will do so under the guise of stopping Iran's nuclear program. The Sunni/Zionist/US propaganda machine is in high gear preparing the world for the destruction of Iran, but the real purpose is not their fear of Iranian Nukes, but Shia geo-political expansion. Of course what we are witnessing is the rise of the Persian empire. Even with their reactionary theocracy, the Iranians/Persians have outflanked the Sunni regimes by supporting Hamas and Hezbollah, thus earning the respect of the Arab masses suffering under the yoke of reactionary Sunni Muslim regimes.

The Iranian theocracy does not have clean hands, but they do stand closer to the Arab masses than the oppressive Sunni governments. America's mission is, of course, oil, oil, oil. She doesn't give a damn about Sunni or Shia, only as pawns in the game of geo-political/economic hegemony. As per America, even the Zionists are expendable. In the end, she will give up support of the Zionist for a barrel of oil! She will give up her mother for two barrels!
--Marvin X
4/16/10

There are wars and there are not wars. There are mock battles, turkey fights full of sound and fury, signifying nothing--or maybe something, for there are motives and agendas far beyond the battle ground, motives and agendas of presidents, prime ministers, generals and war lords in near and distant lands.

Some of these war mongers we hear about, some we don't. In Afghanistan, major players have names like India, Pakistan, Iran, China, Russia, America, Europe--and don't leave out Saudi Arabia, the Taliban's mother-teacher, ideological and spiritual sponsor.

And so we have a geo-political chess game with movement for short and long term gain. And there are pawns and queens that will be sacrificed, and kings shall fall and fake falls, since alliances only last so long in the ephemeral world of war, of politics by other means.

Yet, there is the constant sound of war, the killing, captives ,wounded, towns falling, advance and retreat, all the games of war, tactics, strategy, prognosis, analysis, policy changes, subterfuge, circumlocution. All is drama. Smoke and mirrors. Deals made in the dark of night, between warlords, generals, enemies and friends.

It is neon lights on the strip in Las Vegas. It can be blinding, this blinking, shifting of sands, melting of snow capped mountains. We see one player, then another, arrive in town to broker a deal, departing with a bag of gold or bag of opium, an oil pipeline, a pledge of long range involvement, no matter who wins. Actually there are no winners, only losers. For a moment, one player out maneuvers another.

One sends in a surrogate, more pliant than his superior. There is a willingness to be liberal in the new order coming soon. The conservatives will stay in the background, manage their drug money or bribe money to lay down their arms.

The surrogates will do as told by their sponsors in nearby and distant lands. Each day the killing goes on, the spilling of blood, the breaking of bones. All drama. A scam called democracy.

--Marvin X

3/30/10

23. Parable of North American Africans As HaitiansLet us begin with the notion made by Mrs. Amina Baraka that the so-called Negro or North American African is a West Indian or has Caribbean roots since most of the kidnapped Africans were brought to the Caribbean first for the "breaking in," or brain washing/behavior modification to socialize them for eternal servitude throughout the Americas, including North America. Thus when Caribbean Africans refer to North American Africans as "you people," (meaning black American in the most derogatory sense)the North American African can shoot back that we are "you people" too.
But the similarities and parallels are even more glaring than our common Caribbean behavior modification. In the case of Haiti, our condition in the United States is not far different. Just as the Haitians are landless and lack an agricultural base, so are we. It is not stretching the imagination to say the North American African doesn't grow a tomato, a carrot or string bean.
He, like the Haitians, is a basket case, no matter that in terms of GNP he is the 16th richest nation in the world. In truth, he is a consumer who produces nothing, not even his own food, clothes, soap, beauty products or alcohol, of which he is a major consumer.
As a result of his being at the whim of the petrochemical agribusiness industry, he suffers a form of anorexia, starving like the Haitian, for the food he consumes is devoid of nutrients and vitamins, loaded with salt, sugar, and corn starch, leading him directly from the petrochemical (oil based) agribusiness corporations to the pharmaceutical industry/drug stores and medical facilities.

In the old Muslim mythology, the so-called Negroes food consumption causes him to fall victim to the doctor, nurse and undertaker. But unlike the Haitian middle class mulattoes, the black middle class fares no better than the poor wretched underclass, for they do not take advantage of the health care they when they pay for it.

This is partly due to the hostile relationship all blacks have with the medical profession--they have a well deserved fear of the doctor since the medical profession is known to misdiagnose North American Africans, subjecting them to unnecessary operations or over medicating them with pills. Alas, there are more drug stores in the hood than grocery stores, and the grocery stores sell the worse quality food in the hood. A friend of mine recently retired as a truck driver for a grocery chain in southern California. He said the food he delivered to grocery stores in the hood, he didn't consider food when compared to the gourmet food he delivered to white and upscale neighborhoods.

But driving through the hood and seeing the plethora of drug stores, one wonders are we really this sick? Yes, our addiction to white supremacy, especially the hostile environment all blacks work in, leads to the most severe mental and physical ailments. The health director of Alameda County theorizes that life expectancy is not determined by income but rather where one lives or space and place. If one lives in or near the hood, ones life expectancy is shortened by several years compared with those who live up in the hills as opposed to the flatland here in the Bay Area.

The hostile environment makes all blacks susceptible to stress related diseases, especially high blood pressure, depression, schizophrenia and paranoia. As per the later psychosis, someone is, in fact, after the North American African. He, and more often now, she, is not wanted in high positions challenging the glass ceiling of corporate America.

Like the Haitian, the North American African is educationally challenged, to put it mildly. How can his educational system be any better than the Haitians when 50% to 70% of students in the hood either drop out or are pushed out--pushed out so they will not lower standards and disqualify schools of funding. And even if he received education on the level of whites, it would be mediocre compared with students in China and India who far excel whites, thus the reason for outsourcing of jobs. Why would the capitalist swines pay an American MBA, black or white, $140,000 per year when it can outsource to India and obtain MBAs for $14,000 per year who speak better English?
With respect to agribusiness, the North American African, as I've noted above, fares no better than the Haitian who was hoodwinked into leaving the land and seeking wage slavery in the capital city, thus depriving his nation of food sustenance, making Haiti the worse basket case in the world. Not only is the North American African similarly disposed, but in California he lives in the richest agricultural valley in the world, yet is not involved in agribusiness to any meaningful degree.

How many black students in California colleges and universities are majoring in agribusiness?
Even in tourism, seek out the North American African in the tourist cities of San Francisco and Seattle. You will generally only see him as street musician and/or robot at Fisherman's Wharf and Pike's Market. And how does he fare on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, pre and post Katrina?
Just as in Haiti, decades of underdevelopment as led to the criminal society in the ghettos of North America. In America, the prisons are largely de facto drug recovery and mental health facilities. Between 80% and 90% of all inmates were under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs at the time of arrest. With 30% to 40% of inmates severely mentally ill, the jails and prisons are de facto mental wards, minus substantial mental health treatment.
Just as there is no political structure in Haiti, none of substance exists in North America, despite the so called black president who doesn't mention the word black. As in Haiti, the political structure is largely ruled by mulattoes, from Obama down. Poor Jesse Jackson couldn't be president if he ran a thousand times. Just as Haiti is a caste and class society, North American Africans suffer the same. The brown bag test still exists, in politics, education, religion and the arts, especially Hollywood. If you ain't looking like Halle Berry, don't even think about Hollywood.

Even the Nation of Islam is sugar coated with mulattoes in high places. And don't tell me I'm perpetuating the Willie Lynch Syndrome. No, Willie Lynch is perpetuating the Willie Lynch Syndrome.

Politics in Haiti is corrupt to the point of no return, as in the elected president exiled by US authorities who view Haiti as their turf, just as the cities are largely the turf of the Democratic party, with the resultant corruption of black officials on the west coast, dirty south and east coast. Take a trip from coast to coast and listen to the stories of corrupt black officials in politics, religion and education, from city halls, churches, mosques, secondary schools, colleges and universities.
Perhaps the earthquake shall bring about a new day in Haiti, though we doubt it. It will probably be exploited by capitalist swine developers. Their plans are already in motion. But just as Haiti needs a Marshall plan, so does North American Africans. With all the trillions given out to those who caused the global financial meltdown(they were rewarded for robbery), the filthy capitalist swine, those blood suckers of the poor, i.e., bankers, wall street robber barons, insurance companies, the poor in the hood did not receive an honorable mention.