MIM Notes 182 March 15 1999

On Mumia and Iraq

Dear MIM,

Just a couple of questions.

1. Your January 15 issue criticizes Mumia's jury as not one of his 
peers. What would be? Am I to infer a panel of similar activists, 
or is this a racial question?

Would you accept a panel including Supreme Court Justice Clarence 
Thomas, Actor Denzel Washington, University of California Regent 
Ward Connerly, Los Angeles Police Chief Willie Williams, Detroit 
Mayor Dennis Archer, and others, or must they be black, 
revolutionary activists? Should a crooked Wall Street stockbroker 
be entitled to a jury of his peers? If not, why not?

2. Regarding Iraq. Do you bestow your benevolent support upon 
Hussein? Does he pursue the type of socio-political structure that 
you espouse? Do you want continued use on his part of chemical 
weapons, thus legitimizing such use for the next guy? Don't forget 
he gassed Iran and some Iraqi Kurds. Why don't you call for 
Hussein to abandon his weapons of mass destruction so the 
sanctions will be lifted? Doesn't it bother you that he spent so 
much on his military, and not so much on food?

--a reader February, 1999

MIM responds: On the question of Mumia: Our definition of peer is 
a nation/class definition, not a "racial" one. So, no, Clarence 
Thomas and them wouldn't cut it. The whole bourgeois democratic 
concept of a jury of one's peers assumes a false sense of equality 
that isn't present in imperialist, capitalist Amerika. The Black 
nation is an internal colony of the United Snakes; the concept of 
peer doesn't really apply between nations under that system of 
hierarchy and domination. Mumia's peers are other oppressed 
nationals, and were not sufficiently represented on the jury that 
convicted him. As for a Wall St. stockbroker, his or her peers are 
the ruling class and the judicial establishment; the police are 
his or her police. We don't think such a persyn needs a 
proletarian internationalist communist party to advocate on his or 
her behalf in the bourgeois courts.

On the question of Iraq: Internal oppression has always been the 
rhetorical justification for imperialists invading, bombing, 
taking over and dominating oppressed nations. "But he bombs his 
'own' people!," they cry. "They need us!" MIM is most concerned 
with the principal contradiction: imperialism vs. oppressed 
nations. The worst harm to the Iraqi people since 1991 has 
undeniably come from the United Snakes, not Saddam Hussein. This 
is not an endorsement of Hussein, but neither will we get sucked 
into a debate of his regime that frames the issue on imperialist 
terms.

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