This was originally published by IDOC Watch on May 30, 2020.
One concept of revolutionary dual power is the taking of political theory and ideology and applying it to concrete conditions. This is applicable to mass organizing work, prison solidarity work, etc.. In this instance, I would like to talk about some of the responses and work being done as a result of this COVID-19 attack. Work that is being done by revolutionary, radical, militant, or progressive groups and organizations in various communities throughout the empire.
When the C-19 attack hit, everyone was fearful and nervous becuz we wasn’t all that sure what it was. Some self-interested groups and media hyped and manipulated that fear. Some for self-serving interest, some for kapitalist economic reasons and some just out of ignorance.
You see when it comes to one another, it is easy to fear what you don’t know or understand. When you take the decades of social conditioning with movies like Mad Max, The Purge, Isaiah, then some of our first instinct is to fear your neighbor, horde food, stockpile weapons, or go online and fan the flames of this fear.
Then there are those like Us. People who believe in and fight for, struggle for a better future, who fight for a more just and humane world free of all the negative ‘isms’ that destroy people and whole generations’ lives: isms like racism, kapitalism, kolonialism, and Imperialism that suck the life out of us all; sexism and homophobia that promote and create so much sexual and social violence in our various communities.
Dual power is when you do not depend on the govt to meet the needs of the people and community. Dual power is when we rebuild parallel structures and infrastructures that serve the needs of the people. All people. In actuality dual power functions as a parallel govt that is empowering the people to do for themselves and utilizing their resources to meet the needs of the people and their community.
We serve the people and their interest, because their interest is our interest. We organize, network and empower the people to take control and responsibility over their own destiny.
Indiana Organizing as an Example
How do we do that?
In Indiana groups and organizations like IDOC Watch, NALC, NABPP, various BLM Chapters, and too many others to name are rooted in the community, organizing food drives and setting up distribution networks for critical resources like clothes and medications. Setting up taxi type services for ppl who don’t have transportation, coming to an understanding with street organizations with the New Afrikan Black Panther Party taking the lead with other organizations to implement security networks and patrols in our neighborhoods instead of relying on or having the state police and national guards doing it.Some collectives started community gardens and distributed the food to people and families that needed it. All of this is being done freely.
We don’t care what so-called “race” you are, gender you are etc.. We care about serving the people and setting the examples of socialism in theory and practice.
In Indiana, we also took the lead along with many comrades in other states with calling for and demanding the release of prisoners who were either at risk or had a year or less left on their sentences.
Prisoners’ families contacted some of us and we also utilized various forms of social media to organize, to cultivate working relationships with all kinds of people from various backgrounds and walks of life. What did we have in common? We cared about someone locked down in these modern day koncentration kamps. We cared about prisoners/captives and how the state/govt is disregarding Our/their lives. We networked and organized phone zaps to the various seats of power, calling for release of prisoners. People organized protests and rallies out in front of the jails and prisons while calling press conferences.In solidarity, prisoners in at least three other prisons went on mass hunger strikes asking for basic treatment, humane treatment, e.g., to be issued face masks, to have access to be tested, to not be punished by being placed in solitary for developing symptoms.
By our outside comrades going into churches and activating our own distribution network, we have all been exposed more to and learned from the people, while also exposing to the people our politics and what we are about. What we see developing on the ground in Indiana and behind enemy lines is a result of the work that groups and collectives like IDOC Watch, New Afrikan Liberation Collective, Black Lives Matters, and Prison Lives Matter have been doing for years in the state with boots on the ground.
With this momentum gathering, now that more people are seeking to get involved, now that the sleeping giant behind the prison walls continues to awaken, we have to seize the moment.
The media wants to highlight all the little cute, feel good social networking being done online with the viral videos, mass social interactions, Tik Tok videos, and the like, and all that has its place. But again, we have a vision of a new society. Again, we believe in the radical transformation of society: a society where prisons and caging people are no longer necessary. Where our elders are not being wiped the fuck out becuz they have been placed in some so called nursing home or institution with overworked and under paid people or dominated by a business or corporation that is trying to profit. A world and a society that is no longer structured by klasses. We want an end to this society where privileged folks get health care, get tested and treatment, while poor folks get death! We want an end to a society where we get mass graves, unclaimed bodies or stacked in unrefrigerated U-Haul Trucks on the side streets in Brooklyn, NY!
This is real. People always talking about what can’t happen in amerika. Well it’s happening. The lack of govt resources distributed to various hospitals, poor communities or rural areas is a clue to the future.
Dual power allows us to prepare for such realities. It allows Us to build the political, economic, and military structures and infrastructure we need to help facilitate the bringing into reality the vision of a better world. It gives us an opportunity to share, discuss and breakdown our politics. Dual power helps us to overcome the superficialities that separate us as we learn, teach and grow.Sometimes you have to break the rules in order to make new rules that work for everyone and is applied equally.
We have teachers amongst Us, nurses and medical people amongst us, engineers and ppl with other skills amongst us. Plus a lot of people whom have loss their jobs, people didn’t or don’t have savings, people who are hurting. They also need help. We have comrades purchasing land and properties for community centers. Why not other classes, why not community seizure of empty lots and plant community gardens for community consumption?
When contradictions sharpen between us and the state and they try to kriminalize us, spread propaganda about us, isolate and neutralize us, it is these people, the masses that we serve and continue to serve who will fight for us, protect us and stand not only for us, but with us.
This is why when we see workers at Amazon, Walmart and other companies, businesses and institutions walk off the job in protest due to unsafe working conditions, we should be there to give support, to follow their lead in demanding that these companies or govt entities be held accountable. We should also try to meet their needs where possible.
In Indiana we have the chance to really build and strengthen the movement. We also have a chance to force the state to make some concessions where the so call kriminal justice system is concerned. It’s time for the State of Indiana to catch up with the 21st century with how it treats its prisoners, with how it sentences its so called citizens, with its lack of parole boards or chance for early release. With its new sentencing guidelines that has forced the rate of incarceration up another 35-plus percent. It’s time for these people to be challenged, exposed, and held accountable.
For those activist groups who have no history or experience in doing prisoner solidarity work, you should form prisoner solidarity committees within your own groups so that you can research and discuss amongst yourselves what it is exactly that you want to do. I would suggest that you try to locate and develop a working relationship with other groups who have already been doing some of this work. Groups that have working relationships with the prisoners that they claim to represent. I would suggest that you try to develop principled working relationship with a political prisoner, an activist prisoner, or progressive prison group. We can further build this movement by establishing points of unity, areas and issues we agree on and try to build a coalition. A coalition where we leave egos and petty differences at the door. Maybe we can develop a statewide Steering Committee, maybe a Coalition of Delegates and try and build a solid movement and utilize this momentum.
Remember: Dual Power helps us to build and put in place the basic infrastructure and pillars of the society we say we want to create. It also helps some of us to heal and recover from the damage caused by living under such a system, while we simultaneously work to change and or destroy some of the sick social relations and social intercourse with one another that we have been taught is natural, like racism for example.
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!
FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!!
– Shaka Shakur, A New Afrikan Political Prisoner
