The North American African nation has a new revolutionary hero: Brother Hasan Akbar threw several hand grenades into the command tents at his base in Kuwait. I salute Hasan Akbar for doing what every descendent of slaves should be doing: taking the head of the slave master's children, in the best tradition of ole prophet Nat. Details will be known in time, but it's clear to me the brother knew the real enemy was not Saddam Hussain, but his superiors in the American military, mass murderers in the guise of liberators of the Iraqi people. Clearly, the people are not welcoming the American colonialists with open arms.

Brother Hasan Akbar has demonstrated the true mission of a neocolonial servant: to take advantage of his house servant position to avenge his ancestors and free himself. Of course, the master will, as he did with prophet Nat, try proving to us Hasan Akbar was a crazy negro who was disgruntled with his role as a loyal servant, so his was a lonely act of a deranged person. Certainly, our other neo-slaves do not feel the same but are happy in the role of running dogs for Christian terrorists in Muslim lands.

Amiri Baraka told us, "In the end, the negro will be the terrorist." And so it is. Yes, we are the real threat to American security because we have no social security for ourselves, so why should our oppressors of 400 years feel secure? If every black man would just attempt to do what Hasan Akbar did, we would be offered reparations, including land and sufficient resources for the next 100 years. But most of us are too ignut, stupid and fearful to do anything but commit acts of self destructive violence. When a so-called negro attacks the master, we get on the phone and call another brother, crying about, "Man, you see what that negro did to us?" Who in the hell is "us"? Us is them, and they is not us. Malcolm taught you this: "Boss, is we sick?" Hell naw, we ain't sick, Boss is sick. If "we" is sick it is due to over identification with the master, it is the crisis of black people in the Crazy House Called America. Schizophrenia, amnesia, paranoia, what other terms define our delusional behavior? We want so much to be a part of America, after all, what else do we have, having rejected black nationalism because it might involve too much work, yes, work and we are lazy negroes who are determined not to do for self, contrary to what Marcus Garvey and Elijah taught. So we are Lazarus lying at the rich man's gate. Just as we heard belatedly on June 19 that we were free, we are too deaf, dumb and blind to see the rich man died, to see America has no use for us, except as prison slaves worth between $30,000 and $50,000 per man/woman per year.

If Nat Turner was insane, his act of vengeance was an act of sanity, a necessary step in the process of regaining his mental health, and the same is true for Hasan Akbar. Revolutionary violence is therapeutic: to overthrow the oppressor is healthy. Suppressing the desire for liberation leads to stress inducing heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, eating disorders leading to diabetics, suicidal drug and alcohol abuse and a myriad other complications, all derived from denying the heart's desire for freedom and justice, a resolution of our collective memory and duty to our ancestors who shall never be satisfied with our neo-slave condition as wage slaves and running dogs, buffoons and clowns, nappy headed, ugly lookin weave headed, dred locked nigguhs, pants hangin off our asses like penitentiary punks. We are a disgrace to our ancestors of the 20s and 30s. Look how clean they dressed, beautiful classic black people--today we look like the worst bums of the week, absolute black hippies under the guise of hip hop. If hip hop ain't about something between Nat Turner and Hasan Akbar, take hip hop and stick it. BET should be surrounded for desecrating the image of our people, just as CNN was recently surrounded by people protesting CNN's glorification of the war in Iraq. The Jews would never allow their image as a people to be brutalized and dehumanized. We are the donkey of the world: we go for anything--we shall dance into the camps and gas chambers America is preparing for us.

The oppressor and his lackeys continue giving us images of our heroes as deranged persons. A recent documentary about Nat Turner is a failure from the outset because the filmmaker included excessive footage by and about William Styron's myopic version of Nat Turner. We thought Stryon's Nat was buried in the dustbin of white racist history, but lo and behold, it resurfaced in this film, a version of Nat as a white woman loving, angry slave. Styron's imagination was challenged years ago by ten black writers. The filmmaker would have been closer to the truth of black sexuality and spirituality by borrowing lines from Arna Bontemps revolutionary novel Black Thunder, about Gabriel Prosser's slave revolt. The novel has a wonderful scene showing Gabriel communicating revolutionary love to his beautiful black woman.

Even though the film had ample comments from noted white and black writers, artists and historians, such as Herbert Aptheker (recently deceased, peace be upon him for his monumental work on black history), Michael Thellwell, Vincent Harding, Genovese, Ossie Davis, Skip Gates, Babu of the Pan African Film Festival, none of them put Nat in the context of the numerous slave revolts that occurred throughout the Americas, some of which are well documented in One Hundred Negro Slave Revolts. The general thought is that Nat was an anomaly, but we know Africans revolted from the moment of our kidnapping on the shores of Africa. We resisted during the intertribal wars in Africa, which were often mock battles conspired by the kings in their greedy desire for European trinkets, in the process corrupting all the social institutions for the benefit of the slave trade.

We revolted during the Middle Passage and during the breaking in. Why wouldn't we resist, after all we were warriors and scholars, priests and architects, metal and wood smiths, not ignorant savages needing civilization from real savages who had no knowledge of baths, toothbrushes, spices, salt, and other basic essentials of civilized life. In Brazil, the Hausa Muslim slaves felt it was beneath their dignity to be under the slavery of ignorant Portuguese, who could neither read or write, while the Hausa Muslims wrote and spoke Hausa, Arabic, Yoruba and Portuguese. The Maroon tradition of resistance whereby rebellious slaves established free communities is well known, especially beginning with Palmares in Brazil that was independent for a century, 200 years before Toussaint liberated Haiti from the Spanish, French and English. Yanga liberated his people in Mexico and the Spanish respected his nation in San Lorenzo de los Negros, down in the Vera Cruz region. Let us not fail to mention the tradition of resistance between Africans and the Native Americans, especially the Siminole tradition.

Nat Turner and Hasan Akbar were/are in harmony with Franz Fanon's dictum that the only way the oppressed can gain their mental health is by revolutionary action. As I said at the outset, Hasan and Nat, far from crazy, were/are in better mental health than those slaves who, in the words of Harriet Tubman, "Didn't know they were slaves." Yes, including those modern slaves who think they are free because they got a good job and a SUV, oblivious to the fact that slavery was a job for life, so what advancement have we made in four hundred years if all we have is a motherfuckin job?

In addition, to solidify economic wage slavery, we have bought into (mainly in conspiracy with our women who are the main supporters of the church) and sold out to the religiosity of Pauline Christianity: servants be obedient to your masters. Thank God for Nat who was about liberation theology and we can put Martin Luther KingJr. in this tradition, even with his nonviolence which is a great tactic we may have to ultimately return to when we are seriously about the business of liberation. Any means necessary: violence and nonviolence.

Nat knew he was a slave and was determined to do something about it and I applaud him as my great ancestor who challenged the peculiar institution. And I salute Hasan Akbar as the new Nat Turner who challenged American imperialism and neocolonialism in the middle east.

--Marvin X, 3/23/03