The structural crisis of capitalism in its neoliberal form has created a legitimacy crisis for the capitalist rulers, making the use of force a permanent strategy for maintaining their dominance.

Along with the physical violence of war and repression, endemic structural violence has created devastating outcomes for African/Black people in the United States including outrageous rates of illnesses and deaths due to inadequate healthcare, global South-level infant and maternal mortality rates, mass incarceration, and environmental racism, to name a few.

For the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), the war waged against the working class within the United States mirrors the war waged on African people, other nationally oppressed peoples, workers and farmers. Therefore, these phenomena must be seen as two sides of the same oppressive structure. 

“No Compromise, No Retreat: Defeat the War Against African/Black People in the U.S. and Abroad” is the key programmatic work of the Alliance. The campaign represents a broad strategic and tactical framework. It responds to the changing dynamics of the moment while providing a common collective direction for the 1) peace, 2) People(s)-Centered Human Rights, and 3) anti-imperialist educational and organizing work of Alliance members. 

The campaign also provides a broad framework of resistance and coordination for non-Alliance social forces that are working on multiple, interlocking issues that potentially can facilitate U.S.-wide concentration and coordination of African/Black resistance forces. The work of the campaign is seen as an integral element of the effort to build Black Left Unity and broader radical anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and peace movements.    

 
 

Specifically, the campaign works to: 

  • Abolish the Department of Defense 1033 program

  • Stop Israeli training of U.S. police forces

  • Shut down the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)

  • Close the 800+ U.S. foreign military bases

  • Eliminate “Operation Relentless Pursuit” and all federal anti-crime programs that target Black and other colonized peoples

  • End illegal U.S. sanctions and stop U.S. subversion and foreign political interventions

  • Expose and abolish NATO as a white-supremacist criminal structure

  • Reduce U.S. military budget by 50% as a first step and transfer spending to the human-rights needs of the U.S. public

  • Bring U.S. accountability for systematic police violence against Black and other colonized peoples and the working class

  • Uphold international norms that commit nations and peoples to respect human rights and center peace by demanding passage of Congressional resolutions that commit the United States to uphold international law and the U.N. Charter

  • Require the U.S. Congress to pass legislation and/or resolutions to support the global abolition of nuclear weapons, such as seen with the U.N. Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons

One subsection of the campaign is: 

  1. U.S. Out of Africa: Shut Down AFRICOM. This work emerges out of the efforts of the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases, an organization BAP was instrumental in building that is committed to closing the estimated 800 to 1,000 U.S. military bases established outside the United States. We have developed the U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) as the organizing arm of the U.S. Out of Africa: Shut Down AFRICOM campaign.

 
 

Banner photo credit: Charlie Riedel/AP