In 2021, the International Tribunal On US Human Rights Abuses Against Black, Brown, and Indigenous Peoples found the United States government guilty of genocide. The tribunal drew upon the legacy of the 1951 petition submitted to the United Nations by the Civil Rights Congress: “We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People.” Jalil Muntaqim joins Rattling the Bars to discuss his life, the US’s long history of genocide, the need for a New Afrikan independence movement in the US, and the strategy to internationalize this struggle beyond compromised institutions such as the United Nations.
Click here to learn more about the Spirit of Mandela campaign to organize a People’s Senate.
Jalil Muntaqim is a former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. He was incarcerated for 49 years as a political prisoner of the United States, and released in 2020. Muntaqim’s is the author of several books, the most recent of which is We Are Our Own Liberators: Selected Prison Writings.
Studio/Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Mansa Musa:
Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars, I’m Mansa Musa. And today we have a comrade of mine and a good brother, a freedom fighter, former political prisoner, prisoner of war Jalil Muntaqim. Welcome to Rattling the Bars, Jalil.
Jalil Muntaqim:
Salaam alaykum, jambo, guten tag, peace, whatever your language is, I speak to you and address you in solidarity and peace.
Mansa Musa:
And before we get started, Ramadan mubarak.
Jalil Muntaqim:
[Foreign language], brother, I appreciate that. Thank you for your time.
Mansa Musa:
Yes sir. And tell Rattling the Bars audience a little about who is Jalil Muntaqim.
Jalil Muntaqim:
That’s a good question. That’s a long sense of answer to that question. Jalil Muntaqim, I am a veteran member of the Black Panther Party, Black Liberation Army. I have been engaged in the struggle since age of 16. I actually have engaged in struggle since I was born, you might say. Let me just preface this one. My mom was a student of African dance as a young child and she used to teach African dance to myself and my sister. And her teacher told her that we are of African descent and this is what she taught us, so I was raised with the understanding that I was of African descent.
She did not allow us to be identified or named a Negro or a [inaudible] or a Black person or any other derogatory names that has been launched against our Black people in this country, African people in this country. And so as a result of that I always had been conscious of the reality of our situation here in this country. At the age of 16, I joined the Black Panther Party, became a member of the Black Panther Party. And at the age of 18 I was recruited into the Black Underground. By the time I was 19, I was with Black Underground, that evolved and turned into the Black Liberation Army. By the time I was 19, I was captured.
I was captured on August 28th, 1971, the week after they murdered Comrade George Jackson on August 21st, 1971. Allegedly our action was in retaliation of his murder. The resulted in my being in prison for 49 plus years, almost 50 years in prison, as a result. I didn’t get out until October 6th, 2020. And I’m also an author. I’ve written two books, one called We Are Our Own Liberators, and anybody interested, they can get it from blackdragonmme.com. We Are Our Own Liberators, blackdragonmme.com. And the other book I’ve written have published is called Escaping the Prism: Fade to Black.
And that can be obtained from AK Press. Let me see what else. As a result of my incarceration, I continued to be an organizer. I was an organizer while I was in high school. I started the first Black student union in my high school and I was in San Jose, California. And as a result of that, we was able to get Black study programs established because there was no ethnic programs in the schools back then. And so we was able to get Black studies program going on at that time. And so as my process of my evolving when I went to prison, I continued to organize in 1970-
Mansa Musa:
Well stop right there. Because we want… I got you. But no, that’s good information. And in full disclosure to our audience, I met Jalil as he was getting ready to go into his prison organized. I met Jalil in, I think it was ’73 when they was making a call to take the issue of political prison, prisons of war to the UN. And it’s right at this juncture that I want to open the next question is, walk us through the progression of the strategy to internationalize America’s oppression of Black and Brown people.
Give us a… Because we know that your strategy has been, and your organizational strategy has been to internationalize our struggle. And you find a lot of conversation around why internationalize it when we have a… And people have a tendency to look at the national problem, what’s going on on a national level and feel as though when you say international, it’s almost as if you overlooking local situations. So as walk us through that progression.
Jalil Muntaqim:
Very good. Back in 1975, I returned from New York City to San Quentin Prison. And at the time when I returned back to San Quentin Prison, I was put in Adjustment Center. And as a result of me placed in Justice Center, I decided it was necessary for us to move forward in terms of our struggle. One of the things that when I was in Adjustment Center, I was locked next door to [inaudible 00:05:19], the oldest political prison in the United States today.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right.
Jalil Muntaqim:
And San Quentin [inaudible 00:05:25] on the same gallery, he was in Adjustment Center. The area where Comrade George was murdered at. And I received a pamphlet, a newsletter from a National Committee of the Defense of Political Prisoners, was a committee that was put together in support of the Panther 21 case right back in 1970s, in ’70, ’71. Yuri Kochiyama, who was a friend and member of the AAOU, African-American organization that Malcolm X had put together. She sent me a newsletter, and in the newsletter, they talk about human rights and the issues of human rights.
So at that point in time and knowing that El-Haj Malik Shabazz had told us, he had instructed us that it’s necessity for us to take our struggle to the international arena and that our struggle is more than just a civil rights, it’s a human rights. And with that understanding, El-Haj Malik Shabazz says, “For long as we continue to maintain our struggle within the civil rights dynamics of struggle, that the United States will continue to confine our struggle within those parameters within the jurisdiction of the United States.” That’s been a civil rights issue. And he said that, El-Haj Malik Shabazz, Malcolm X said that we need to take it to the international community and make our struggle a human rights one.
And so at that point in time, when I decided that was necessary for us to establish what I organized, what they called the US Prisons Petition Campaign to the United Nations. And this was the first petition campaign that was submitted to the United Nations that dealt with the issues, not only the conditions of our prison situation, but also the issues of existence of political prisons in the United States. So that’s one other area for which we began to internationalize our struggle. Now naturally, as you well know, prior to that, our struggle has been internationalized due to Black Panther Party.
Was internationalized when Robert Williams went into exile. He had to go to Cuba and went to China. And then for other places talking about our struggle. Eldridge Cleaver, when they established the Black Panther Party office in Algeria, they traveled throughout the country. Huey P. Newton established a working relationship with [inaudible] when he went to China. And so for us, there has always been a means and a method for which we tried to internationalize our struggle and take it out of basically the jurisdiction of the US to codify and/or limit and prohibit to what degree we’re able to fight back to resist a White supremacy and capitalist imperialism.
Mansa Musa:
All right, let’s go right here then, on that right there. All right. So we recognize the progression and we recognize the historical significance and the relationship. But let’s look at this here, it says it is a consensus worldwide that the United Nations… Because that’s where, when we talking about internationalizing, we talking about going to an institutional body to get some type of mandate to come out to say that what the United States is doing is inhuman.
So the mechanism that we’ve been talking about is the United Nations, but it’s the public consensus, ineffective as a body, but mainly when it comes to addressing complaints against United States and human rights. Case in point, going back to your point, Paul Robeson, they took a petition to the UN in ’51, we charged genocide documenting the lynching of Black people and poor people in this country. Then you reference Malcolm X, and as you noted, we made it, we took it in terms of the strategy that you outlined, took it in and put political prisoners and prisoners of war in that space.
But what is it about this body? I understand international context, but what is it about the United Nations that gives you some type of solace that this is a good place to put attention in? When you look at the Palestinian situation, you look at, they allow United States to bomb our Iraq, both under false narrative of trying to get [inaudible] uranium, they killed [inaudible]. So we know that when it comes to United Nations, that it’s really the United States foot-stool for lack of better terminology. So educate our audience on why this particular body under that overview that I just outlined.
Jalil Muntaqim:
Very good. I’m glad you raised that question because there are some contradictions in regards to our movement trying to have the United Nations to support us in the broader scale of which it exists. I think it’s important to understand that the United Nations, in terms of international law, it’s a body of international law. And as much as there are held together by individuals, nation, state individuals and organizations who may be coattailed to the United States because of the money that United States put into the United Nations, it diminishes our capacity to influence the processes.
But that doesn’t mean that we not should try to influence the process. Ultimately what it does is we are by presenting our struggle and our issues to the United Nations, it goes to the people as well. Those individuals will bring those issues to the people. And that’s what we really want to address. We really want to address the people of the world by regard to our struggle. And so this is a body from which we can do so, at least raise the issues, our concerns, our struggle to that body. And so that it can be reached at a broader branch of people. Now we’ve had comments go to Geneva, we’ve had petitions submitted to Geneva on the issues of our struggle.
And we need to continue to do so because it is a body of laws, international law. We are trying to make the United States adhere to the international law, for instance genocide. In 2018 I proposed that we bring the International Jury to the United States and we held an International Tribunal. And the International Tribunal on October 25th, 2021, they found the United States guilty of five charges. This is an esteemed body of international jurors, some of them have working relationships with the United Nations, and they are now promoting their verdict of October 25th, 2021 stated that the United States is guilty of five charges that we brought to them.
Five charges of mass incarceration, police terror and murder of our people, environmental racism, health inequities, and also the exists of political prisoners. The United States was found guilty by an esteemed body of international jurors on the reality of that they have violated international law as it pertained to those five particular issues. And so for us, we are using what mechanism is available to us. If we could create another mechanism for which we can build our international relationship with other folks and people, then we would do so. But that’s the only mechanism that’s working at this point in time. As you stated, Paul Robeson in December 17th, 1951, about two months after I was born, had brought the issues of genocide to the United Nations.
As you well know, the FBI hindered hindered that process. They would refuse to allow Paul Robeson to leave the country. And although William Patterson was able to go over to Geneva and present the petition, they tried to prevent him from coming back to the United States. And so for us it’s always a means, based upon the instructions of El-Haj Malik Shabazz, Malcolm X, to find the ways that we can reach our people on the international platform. When I say our people, I’m talking about the progressives on the international platform. Let them know what is actually going on here in the United States amongst Black people, Brown people, Indigenous people in this country. It is a mechanism, it’s not the end results, it is a method for which we can bring our struggles into the international community.
Mansa Musa:
And that bring me to my next question. Because like you say, it’s a real effective strategy. You have got the international body of people that’s directly related to the UN in some shape, form, or fashion to come-
Jalil Muntaqim:
Which are supporting our movement now.
Mansa Musa:
… To come and review the indictment that we brought about genocide. And you had them review the indictment, and as a result of reviewing the indictment, they came out with the International Tribunal on human rights abuse against Black and Brown, Indigenous people. How are you taking that finding? Because that finding in and of itself, we know don’t have the force of law. It’s a nice document and it’s a nice support mechanism.
How do you plan on taking that document and moving the narrative forward to try to start peeling off more support from countries in terms of recognizing that the United States is practicing genocide against us. How do you plan on taking that document? Because as you said, if that same body would’ve been the voting body of the general assembly in the UN, then United States would be thus duly charged based on that. So how do you plan on-
Jalil Muntaqim:
Let’s look at that on a couple levels. First level is here, United States is a treaty member of the Genocide Convention of 1948. United States has on its books, in its federal books, 18 USC 1091, which simply mimics or copies the genocidal doctrine of 1948. But we know that the United States will not charge itself with genocide, although they’re in violation of their own laws. So what we’re going to do, what we intended to do is build our base so that we can file a legal petition in the federal courts charging the United States having violated their own rules or regulations and according to international law.
And so in that instance, we’ll be able to educate greater people both nationally and internationally of the contradiction that we have with the United States in regards to their… Adherent to this false philosophy, aberrant philosophy of White supremacy, that ensures that other people of color are inferior to White people. And so when we understand that dynamic, we are raised in people’s consciousness, using international law as well as national dynamics where we can engage them by building our base of support. We also are building toward what we call people’s assemblies. We’re building a people’s assemblies based upon what we call a Peoples’ Senate.
And we would have ambassadors who would travel throughout the world and raise our questions, our issues in those particular bodies. We have been over in the Caribbean, we have been the areas of Africa. I went to Greece last year to the International Symposium of Political Prisoners in Greece, African Greece. And I told them at my presentation that you will not be free, the international community will not be free until Black people were free in this country. And so in this way we’re making the connections with the international community based upon the idea and goals and objectives based upon the decision, the verdict of the International Jury finding the United States guilty of genocides.
And so with that understanding, based upon their own violation of their own laws, we can do two things. One, bring them to court, raise it on a national level and continue to send out our ambassadors around the world and speak on these issues, raise these questions. We’ve been to South Africa, we’ve been to Ghana, we’ve been to Barbados, we’ve been to Greece. I got some people once to, they’re thinking about having me go tour parts of Europe and also Latin America. And so this is how we built out our struggle and join the progressive communities around the world who has been engaging, fighting against US imperialism and White supremacy throughout the world.
Mansa Musa:
And now, I like that connection because as our audience would need to be made aware of, when we talk about international struggle, we’ve been able to make the connection in terms of United States own laws and that at some point in time a forum going to have to be held about that. And they going to have to address that at some point in time in the court of law in the United States, which gives them a lot more… People got a local mentality and a national mentality, be able to put them in a space where they comfortable with recognizing that, “We are affected by this because we can see it right here, right now.”
As opposed to trying to get them to take a broader perspective and say, like Malcolm say, “We all in the same boat.” All right, we talk about this here, Jalil. Lastly, so you mobilized the necessary support and you get the necessary results in terms of the United Nation, the courts. So what is the relief that we are asking for? What are we looking to get in return? Because I think most people want to know, are we just rabble-rousing or do we have actually got a strategy of what we want in return and what we going to do with our return?
Jalil Muntaqim:
Okay, well let’s look at this a little bit more deliberately. We know that the United States have been found guilty of genocide. We know they’ve been engaged in the process of genocides for the last 400 years. We know that the system of White supremacy is not going to just disappear. So it is our duty to divorce ourselves from a system that’s engaging in genocides. We have to ensure that we are suffering no more harm. The trauma that we have suffered in the last 400 years is indelible. It has been internalized for the most part. And so we have to do a whole new reeducation, reprocessing of our consciousness.
And that means that we have to decolonize ourselves, when I say decolonize our mentality and our thinking in terms of who we are as a people in this country. And that’s another issue that we have to address. Are we in fact a colonized nation, a colonized people? And if we are, then we need to figure out some ways how to manage that idea that we need to divorce ourself from the conditions of colonization. So that means that we need to move towards independence. I’m saying this here. At the minimum, we divorce ourself from a system that has been engaging in genocide. We have to remove ourselves from harm. That’s what I’m saying, because they been killing us for the last 400 years.
Mansa Musa:
And continue to do it.
Jalil Muntaqim:
And continue to do so. When they just shot this kid the other day, this young man the other day, shot him 60 times. They shot at him a hundred times and shot him 60 times. How many bullets does it take to kill one man? That was not just a message to this one guy or this one family, it was a message to everyone, of police terror. That’s the reason why they found guilty of genocide, by the way that they’ve been murdered us by police terror. You see what I’m saying? Mass incarceration is another issue. Mass incarceration, what they found guilty of by the international jurors of mass incarceration, that’s genocide.
So we got to fight against this mass incarceration. One way to fight against it is to end penal slavery by the 13th Forward. By ending penal slavery, we take the incentive out of mass incarceration. That means they cannot profit off our labor. Our people don’t understand that slavery was never totally abolished in the country, we have what we call penal slavery. They just [inaudible 00:21:26] to the United States Constitution. So that’s another area where we are fighting back. Other, environmental racism. We know what happened in Flint, Michigan. Or Mississippi. Why is it that our people… Health inequities is another area which we have found ourselves confronting the issues of genocide, which we have found guilty of.
Why is it that White people live twice as long as Black people in this country? Where does that come from? Why is it that it has been stated that Black man is an endangered species in this country? Where does that come from? It comes from the idea of White supremacy and trying to maintain a system from which we, Black people, Brown people, Indigenous people maintain inferiority to White superiority. Which again, I say is an average philosophy, it’s an average psychological… And in my understanding, it’s a mental disorder. And White superiority is a mental disorder. And I say that based upon what the DMS-IV book says, the diagnostic book says.
Mansa Musa:
That’s right. That’s their book.
Jalil Muntaqim:
The psychological diagnostic book states that superiority complex is in fact a complex, it is a psychological disorder. And White supremacy is a derivative of the superiority complex where they feel their superiority. So these people are crazy. So we got to remove ourselves from these people because they have been harming us for the last 400 years.
Mansa Musa:
I gotcha.
Jalil Muntaqim:
So for building this outward, both on the national, international level, is extremely important. This is the reason why after the verdict by the international jurors finding the United States guilty on those five charges, we decided it is necessary for us to build what we call a Peoples’ Senate.
Mansa Musa:
Talk about that.
Jalil Muntaqim:
We got to create alternatives to the existing reality of our existence here in the United States. And so what we’re doing now, knowing that the United States functions as a corporation in behalf of other corporations, the law says… Not what Jalil says, the law says, the Supreme Court has stated in, I think Citizens Action, but they determined that corporations are people. So we also know that the United States is in fact a corporation, based upon 28 USC 3002 Section 15A-
Mansa Musa:
Commercial code?
Jalil Muntaqim:
Yeah, commercial code. And it informs that the United States is in fact a federal corporation. And so when they say our people, “For the people by the people,” they’re not talking about sentient human beings, they’re talking about corporations. They function in behalf of corporations, not for human beings. And so when we decided that it’s necessary for what to build what we call a Peoples’ Senate to divorce ourself from a system that’s not working in our best interest and began to create alternative systems, alternative modes of operation, alternative ways of where we can fulfill our prosperity, our goals, our ambitions, our livelihood outside of the dictates of the system that has been engaging in genocides against us.
And so the Peoples’ Senate is important. So we’re going to have Peoples’ Senates across the country. We’re going to build people’s assemblies across the country, and we’re going to establish the financial and economic basis for which we can be able to strive, utilizing the resources that we have available to us in any cities and states across the country. And this process will begin to ensure that our struggle moving forward is safeguarded because we have created a condition for which we have a body of people who are engaged in struggle against a system that has been involved with genocides against us.
Not only that, but we’re also moving towards national liberation independence. And this is a hard one for people to chew on. We know that there are sovereign nations in this country. The Native Americans, the indigenous people in this country for the most part are sovereign nation. How come we aren’t? That’s a question I need to ask. If they can be a sovereign nation, how come we aren’t? If we look at the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution as an example, we realized that we never had an opportunity when they promulgated the 13th Amendment in 1865. We never had the opportunity to do three things.
One, to decide whether we want to stay in the United States, decide whether we want to go to Africa or return back to Africa, or decide we want to create our own homeland, what is called a plebiscite vote. The part of our struggle is to ensure that we have a plebiscite vote, make determination what we want. So the Fourth Amendment imposed the civilization on the 3 million to 5 million African people who were emancipated in 1865. And so for us, it’s always made a question of who are we in terms of our nationhood, that has not been established by us for us.
And so that is another part of this process of separating ourself, divorcing ourself from a system that’s been engaged in genocides against us for the last 400 years. Now that we have law established in terms of international protocols by an esteemed body of international jurors have determined the United States has been engaged in this process of genocides against us. That informs us that we need to separate ourself and divorce ourself from a system that’s doing us harm, has been doing us harm for the last 400 years. And so that’s part of the process.
Mansa Musa:
So how can we get in touch with you and how can our viewers get in touch with the Spirit of Mandela?
Jalil Muntaqim:
Very good question. Go to spiritofmandela.org and tap over to the Peoples’ Senate, or go to Peoples’ Senate, spiritofmandela.org and you’ll find all the information you need to find to be involved with this process. We have what we call in the Spirit of Mandela, I’m raise this up so you can see it. You’ll find this particular document right here, for the Spirit of Mandela Explanation and Recruitment manual. And this is what we are organizing for.
Now, when we first initiated this campaign naturally in terms of our political prisoners, we was moving under the United Nations Spirit of Mandela Rule, which is the basic standards for the treatment of prisoners, which they turned into the Mandela rule. And so we’re using that idea of the Mandela rule, that’s why we came with this name, Mandela Rule, to ensure our people on the inside of these penal slave institutions are granted the same rights that are supposed to be granted to anyone who have been incarcerated or who have been imprisoned. Based upon the Mandela rules, based upon the United States standard treatment of prisoners, which is now the Mandela rule.
And so that’s one of the areas that we’re dealing with. But more importantly, we want to end penal slavery in the United States. When we end penal slavery, we end the school to prison pipeline, we end the issues of mass incarceration. We end, for the most part, targeting our community for mass incarceration. And so that’s one of the ideas of building a Peoples’ Senate and raising this to people’s consciousness and understanding to what degree we have to resist. So yeah, that’s what we’re doing.
Mansa Musa:
Okay, hey, thank you.
Jalil Muntaqim:
Spirit of Mandela.
Mansa Musa:
Spirtofmandela.org.
Jalil Muntaqim:
.org/peoples-senate. That’s what people need to go to.
Mansa Musa:
There you have it. The real news about the campaign to end and abolish slavery in the United States as we know it under the 13th Amendment, how we going to organize to gain our own independence, how we going to move forward on the international level to have the international community weigh in on this issue. We already recognize that United States has been cited for genocide, as Jalil just outlined the case. So we are asking all our viewers and our listeners to look into this and make a decision on what you think you should or should not do in this regard. Thank you, Jalil. Thank you for delighting us and educating us, brother.
Jalil Muntaqim:
Absolutely, brother. Let me make one selfish plug.
Mansa Musa:
Make a selfish plug.
Jalil Muntaqim:
We’re also building what we call decolonization programs across the country. And these decolonization program programs evolved out of the Black Panther party survival programs. The survival programs of the Black Panther party were defensive. We are building what call decolonization programs, which are offensive. We are creating a method from which we can divorce ourselves from the system by creating these alternative decolonization programs.
If anyone want to learn more about decolonization programs, I urge you to get the book, We Are Our Own Liberators that explains the whole dynamics of building towards what we call [inaudible 00:30:43] Liberation, New Afrikan Nation and these colonization programs. And they can get the book from blackdragonmme.com, We Are Our Own Liberators. So if we don’t liberate ourselves, no one else will.
Mansa Musa:
That you have it, The Real News. And we ask you to continue to support The Real News and Rattling the Bars. Where you going to get this kind of information from? Where are you going to get a formal political prisoner, prisoner of war, come in and educate you about genocide, colonialization and decolonialization, and more importantly, give you a strategy on how to eradicate all the above? So we thank you and we ask you to continue to support Rattling the Bars and The Real News. Thank you very much.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
