Students spark, Students spark,
The capitalist system denies the vast majority of African people the right to an education. Education is needed to develop culturally, intellectually, and spiritually. Capitalists understand that the most dangerous African to capitalism is an African who has the intellectual capacity to interpret and understand the nature of capitalist oppression. The Revolutionary Intelligentsia's mission is to provide the catalyst to accelerate political education within the masses of the People! Particularly in enemy held zones, where negative forces are in overwhelming control of productive forces, the quickest way to propagate revolutionary theory to our people is through the organization of those who are readers, speakers, writers and have the skills that will aid in the dissemination of revolutionary ideas and are committed to the implementation of those ideas; here, we speak of the vitally strategic role of the revolutionary intelligentsia, many, though certainly not all, are
students. (Nkrumah)
The constant development and growth of this revolutionary intelligentsia comes to play a strategic role in the organization of a mass, community-wide grass roots struggle for positive action(Nkrumah). Of course, wherever there is positive action, negative action is lurking; wherever there is revolutionary theory, there is counter-revolutionary theory seeking to confuse the People. This confusing theory is
particularly intense on the college campus and high schools (K. Ture). To the shrewd eye and mind this attempted confusion points to the basis for building a strategy of concentrating on what the enemy sees as a threat (Nkrumah).
African people shed blood for the education of African youth. Therefore every African student holds a
historically determined responsibility to love, serve, and sacrifice for the Masses. Your education is a product of the People's struggle. Your education belongs to the People. The US is the leading capitalist country in the world today. It intellectually and ideologically destroys more Africans than any other capitalist country. Africans from all over the world are seeking their 'education' inside the most degenerate, immoral, and corrupt country known to history. The problem is easily understood.
In 1993-94 there were a total [in thousands] of 20,569 students born in Africa, and 10, 572 from the Caribbean
attending universities and colleges in the US. In 1994 the number of African students, in thousands, born in the US
who attended or graduated from an university or college is as follows: some college 11,536, Associates Degree 3,633,
Bachelor's Degree 5,407, Master's 1,468, First Professional 208, and Doctorate's 175 for a total of 22,427. This is a
major sector of the African intelligentsia who are the direct beneficiaries of the African Revolution.
Yet given this vast number of students, the Masses of African People suffer from the lack of the very technical skills, knowledge and science African students have acquired. The vast majority of students and other African intelligentsia are alienated from the Masses. The have accepted the ethics and values of capitalism and have separated their own advancement with the advancement of the Masses. He/She has become imbued with bourgeois ideology.
This is one problem of which the African intelligentsia suffers. The have betrayed their historically determined mission to represent the just aspirations of the oppressed African Masses for the crumbs of capitalism. "Under colonialism, an intelligentsia educated in western ideology emerged and provided a link between the colonial power and the masses. It was drawn from for the most part from the families of the chiefs and from the 'moneyed' sections of the population. The growth of the intelligentsia was limited to the minimum needed for the functioning of the colonial administration...the aspirations of the majority of Africa's intellectuals are characteristic of the middle class. They seek power, prestige, wealth, and social position for themselves and their families. Many of those from working-class families aspire to middle-class status, shrinking from manual work and becoming completely alienated from their class and social origins." (Nkrumah)
History has assigned the intelligentsia, particularly university students, the role as the Spark of Revolution. Students occupy a unique position in society as the intellectual representatives of the Masses. Yet capitalism uses them to further its end of exploitation. This the dilemma of the African student and intelligentsia of today. Do I remain true to the history of struggle, needs and aspirations of the Masses or do I sell myself for the crumbs off of the capitalists' table? History is honored with shining examples of students who have advanced the cause of the Masses. Student organizations from the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Black Consciousness Movement of Azania, National Union of Eritrean Students, South African Student Organization, Federation of Cuban Students were in the forefront of the struggle for human rights, dignity and national liberation. This historical trend is recognized as a social fact. For African people to advance in their just struggle for National
Liberation, Pan-Africanism, and Socialism they must be educated by a Revolutionary African intelligentsia.
The Revolutionary intelligentsia is that part of the African intelligentsia who have committed themselves to the destruction of neo-colonialism and the building of a society based on socialist principles. Kwame Nkrumah goes further in saying, 'revolutionary intellectuals...provide the impetus and leadership of the worker-peasant struggle for all out socialism. It is among this section that the genuine intellectuals of the African Revolution are to be found. Very often they are the minority products of colonial educational establishments who reacted strongly against its brainwashing processes and who become genuine socialist and African nationalist revolutionaries.
"WITHOUT THE ACTIVE PARTICIPATION OF THE YOUTH, ARDENT, AND RECEPTIVE TO NEW IDEAS TO TRANSLATE THEM INTO REALITY, REVOLUTION CANNOT MAKE RAPID PROGRESS. THUS, YOUNG PEOPLE MUST FORM NOT ONLY A SHOCK BRIGADE BUT THE MAINSTAY OF THE REVOLUTION"
(LeDuan)
The capitalist system keeps African People ignorant of their history. It propagandizes us to believe that the only principles and values from which we should live by are the principles and values of capitalism. It teaches us that the theft of Turtle Island (North America) from its Indigenous Peoples and the creation of a "bourgeois democracy" on stolen land was the greatest feat in modern history. It dismisses the massacre of over 500 indigenous tribes, nations, and groups living within the US. It propagandizes us to accept and appreciate this holocaust of over 90 million Indigenous peoples and over 100 million African People. The capitalist system propagandizes the African Masses to hate everything African and cherish everything European. This is the essence of the mis-education of the African Masses under capitalism.
African People have a history of Revolutionary struggle. It is a history denied to the Masses. It is a history that is studied and known by college students and intelligentsia. For the African Masses to accelerate the pace of their struggle for liberation and unity they must have political education. "To educate the masses politically...is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them." (Fanon) The Masses must understand their history and the principles and values that reflect our culture. They must learn and live by humanist, egalitarian, and collectivist principles which cultivate the best in the African conscience and way of life. It is the African college student and intelligentsia that was sent by the Masses to study, learn, sacrifice, and serve them. The university student and intelligentsia is forever indebted to the Masses for every degree and job they hold. Knowledge is not a commodity; it is a weapon of the Masses. Its purpose is to guide us in
our struggle to rehabilitate Africa and the African Masses worldwide.
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