February 9, 1995: Vol26n16: Ture exhorts audience to organize to effect social change

By NATHAN GOLDBERG
Reporter Contributor
Power begins on the level of conception," Kwame Ture told a
predominately African American audience last Tuesday evening at UB's
Diefendorf Hall. "It's how you see the problem and how you understand
your abilities to solve the problem that gives you real power."
	Known to most as civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael,
Kwame Ture served as prime minister of the Black Panther Party in
1969; before that, he was involved with the Congress of Racial
Equality, and was head of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee. A member of the Communist Party at the time, Ture said he
became disillusioned with what he saw as the Eurocentricity of
Marxism-Leninism and began searching for more Afro-centric expressions
of socialist thought.
	The program, arranged by UB's Black Student Union, featured
Ture lecturing on issues such as Pan-Africanism, African socialism,
and his own All-African People's Revolutionary Party, which he heads
with founder Kwame Nkrumah.
	A central point of Ture's lecture was that Africa would be the
first continent to unify under one socialist government. This
unification, he maintained, would already exist today had Africa's
natural evolutionary process toward unity not been interrupted by
European colonialism and the slave trade. Speaking of this future
unity, Ture told his audience that, "I do not say that (Africa will be
the first united continent) because I am an African and that is my
dream. I say this because it is a simple truth."
	Ture asserted that all national and social divisions in Africa
are the result of attempts by European conquerors to split Africa into
fractious elements, making the region easier to control. He described
much of the present leadership in Africa, especially the current
regime in his home of Guinea, as thoroughly under U.S. or European
influence and incurably corrupt. Ture maintained that only with the
implementation of Pan-African socialization could Africa successfully
force out the corrupting influences that rule it today. He claimed
this unification would be the final, violent result of an innate
desire for solidarity among Africans the world over.
	When questioned by a Nigerian student on the difficulties of
unifying an Africa rampant with tribalism and religious conflict, Ture
replied that, "These divisions are not natural; they are created, and
knowing that they are created, the simple solution is to solve the
problem through education, and, of course, by keeping the external
forces outside." When the same student asked if the Rwandan tragedy
could be considered evidence of the impossibility of a totally united
Africa, Ture became impassioned: "The Tutsis and the Hutus speak the
same language! It was the French who did all that. During colonialism,
they're the ones who set up the regimes."
	Ture spoke repeatedly of what he called the evils of all
capitalist systems, finding at the root of this evil the fact that in
capitalism, "Those who do the labor do not enjoy the fruits of their
labor." He went on to say that there are only two economic systems in
the world: capitalism and socialism. Ture viewed this duality as based
upon economic assumption that in every society, "either a few will
own, or all will own," and that in America, the white upper class
"owns everything." Referring to the American civil rights movement as
ineffective, Ture said that reformation laws are passed only to be
ignored, and revolution is the only effective way to change a social
system.
	For the achievement of Pan-Africanism, Ture outlined three
necessities: revolution, socialism and a mass political party. When
asked about the apparent failure of socialism in Russia, he responded
that, "Just because socialists betray socialism, just like Christians
every day betray Christianity, doesn't give you the right to condemn
socialism." On this point he asserted that Gorbachev, "scum that he
is," and Yeltsin, betrayed the people of Russia to try to move closer
to the U.S. Ture then gave examples of areas which he saw as
successful and authentic socialist states, such as North Korea, Libya
and China.
	As for the U.S., Ture encouraged African Americans to join
organizations, telling his audience that only when organized could
people effect social change, and work toward a common goal. He defied
anyone to object to his ideas unless they themselves were organized
and committed to ideas of their own.
	He cited the "Rodney King rebellion" as an example of the
revolutionary potential of an organized African American populace.
"What could American technology do against the unorganized,
undisciplined mass of people who rose up after Rodney King in Los
Angeles? Do you know what will happen when they plan it?" he said.
Ture told the audience that the coming together of different gang
factions in the wake of the Rodney King verdict, indicates both the
capacity for cooperation among African Americans, and the
revolutionary power of that capacity.