POW/PPThe above was written shortly after the
death of Kuwasi Balagoon 15 years ago by Black Liberation Army soldier
Albert Nuh Washington who died himself a year ago, ALSO in prison!
1986 and 2000. Kuwasi was the first of the BLA prisoners to die in
prison. We know that Nuh was not the last as just THIS year Teddy
Jah Heath died in prison. It is said that death varies in its
significance.
It can be weightier than a mountain or lighter than a feather. We
said that then as young fighters and we feel its weight now as many
of us are middle aged, in poor health and walking everyday in the
midst of social and spiritual devastation of our communities. When
one has lived the high tide of revolutionary struggle and has tasted
the power of striking back, when one has been part of organizational
forces and ancestral support that can take credit for putting fear
in the lives of formerly awesome pig oppressors, it is hard to attend
the wake or funeral of another comrade who reminds you that YES WE
DID IT. We did it and that we made a comittment to help build the Armed
Potential for the liberation of our communities. Crazy though we may
have been, and crazy as some of us still be, we left a mark and a
message for generation to come that we CAN win. And if it be that
we cant win then we can, like Eldridge say "throw a nigger wrench
into the machinery" with the only power that we have…the power to
destroy the orderly flow of official everyday bullshit. Kuwasi Balagoon, 1946 TO 1986. The essence of
the Lumpen-street outlaw. Law-breaker, law-manipulator, law-eliminator.
And revolution sounds like grandma’s breakfast call. It was not only
the social and historical forces that shaped him and so many others
like him. It wasn’t only the creation of the Black Panther Party and
the genius of Huey P. Newton’s vision of an American Revolution led
by that day’s discarded peoples "with no ties to the basic means of
production." It was that the idea was INSANE that anyone should believe
that the discarded people of the streets can be ACTORS, leading actors
on the stage of human struggle for freedom. Power to Insanity! This
is the most advanced technological society in the world. White racism
had corralled black people into urban Bantustans. Out of seemingly
nowhere comes Franz Fanon’s hustlers, janitors, maids, stick-up kids,
alcoholics, welfare recipients, killers (some trained by Uncle Sam
to kill other people of color), illiterates and college students turned
revolutionaries who will rock and inspire others to join all kinds
of social movements to ROCK this kapitalist empire at its very
foundations.
Kuwasi was a part of that. He was an OUTLAW; an outlaw who was in
search of a way to be the most effective political actor he could
for his people and for the destruction of Babylon. His very
constitution
was freedom. His very personal constitutional make-up was outlaw,
as in, "I cannot accept any law that is out of harmony with my very
being." That search for existential relevance was found in the Black
Panther Party. Marx, Lenin and others could agree on one thing about
the Lumpen, that you can’t harness them, you can’t discipline them.
And maybe they were right. You can’t, or at least it’s hard to harness
the Lumpen spirit, which is a nomadic spirit, an anarchic spirit which
is finally, a fuck the bullshit spirit cuz Free Life is worth taking
your best shots, literally. It was a good thing (that just needed other
creative organizational forms) not a bad thing. That’s why when those
of us even thought about joining the Black Underground we thought
of panther outlaws before us like Kuwasi, Saundra Holmes, Geronimo
and Twyman. Kuwasi’s name was already well known. Wild man, escape
artist. Freed himself and risked it sneaking armed back to the prison
gates for others. Daring, a daringness that was not anything foolish
but represented the kind of spirit that you can’t harness, the kind
that guided Huey’s intellectual daringness, the literary daringness
of Papa Rage, the role-breaking daringness of Assata Shakur, and the
bi-sexual daringness of… who? -- of Kuwasi himself! I remember when I was in prison we got word
through
the VooDoo Communiciations network through Kuwasi (and others whom
I can’t name), that if we needed help in raising up on outta that
high walled prison to let them know. We did. That was Kuwasi, for
whom RISKS were like the air he breathed. You breathe, you take risks.
I risk, therefore I AM. And though it made no sense to me then that
he was also The Anarchist, I thoroughly understood it now. When the
BPP could no longer serve his spirit, the Black Liberation Army’s
anarchistic style could. And he obviously liked the vision of a
Republic
of New Afrika, free from Babylonian control and self-determining.
I respect that. Upon my prison release at the end of 1985 and
attending his Memorial after his death on December 13, 1986, comrades
of the Black Liberation Army (and those in the know) shared with me
those stories (which make for precious new motivating Myths) of the
TRICKSTER, shape-shifter, elusive, daring, bold… Kuwasi. He could
take’em down: enemies, armored cars, while being sustained by love
and loyalty, both giving and accepting. Kuwasi lived his life, his
short 40 years own his own terms, outlaw terms from his personal to
his political. He was in solidarity with whomever he wanted, he loved
whomever he wanted, he fought on whatever terrain he landed, whether
on the streets or in the prisons. Lastly, in my ramblings, he left us all a rich
legacy in actions and words. Both had these things in common: they
challenged the dominant reality that held humanity in check, and they
challenged us\our dominant revolutionary thinking if IT was holding
our humanity and movement activities IN CHECK. That was the meaning
of his political outlawry, his free lifestyle and his undying love
for Lumpen Humanity. He is bigger now than he was in life. We can
all, proudly – the Black/New Afrikan, the Youth, the Queer, the Outlaw,
the Community, the Other – take a piece of him and be further motivated
to struggle. Each piece will only multiply. Ha! He’d probably just
ask that we learn to CONVERGE collectively and deal a final DEATH
BLOW to this infernal enemy of LIFE. There are cats, and there are cats. There is
Kuwasi Balagoon "A strong people don’t need strong leaders." –
Ella Baker Work for the Freedom of All Political
Prisoners
with Urgency! Good Morning, Revolution, I See Your Light
Again. All power thru the people! Ashanti Omowali |