For the Rosa Luxemburg Conference

Speech By Mumia Abu-Jamal Presented By His Son at the Conference on January 11, 2014

Friends, Brothers, Sisters, Comrades,

I greet you all through my son, Jamal, and thank you for your work to free those in American dungeons, and to shut down the U.S. Death House.

We know that Red Rosa spent time in prison (in Breslau), but I doubt she dreamed of the size and scope of what the American system of mass incarceration has come to.

Because he is my son, he has felt that sting, but he is free today—a survivor of that monster.

I thank you for receiving him.

You have asked about the rightist trend emerging in several states, and what that portends for the future.

History teaches us that rightist; xenophobic forces arise in nations where economic anxiety heightens. We can see this quite clearly in nations facing austerity measures, where social services like education, housing and healthcare gets cut.

We are seeing it in Greece, with the emergence of Golden Dawn. We see it in England, in France, in the Nordic nations and yes—in Germany.

These forces draw people apart, and utilize fear and enmity to waken the working class.

That’s why the rulers seek austerity. It serves their economic interests.

For when people are divided and fighting each other, they cannot fight the System.

For young people, it’s especially important to build racial and resistance movements, for by so doing they deny that energy to reactionary movements, and they also give hope to other social movements and activists to stand their ground.

Young people must—must—resist the call of the austerity supporters to turn inward and ignore what’s happening in those countries.

They must engage, build movements, and create greater social cohesion, to resist the ideology of austerity.

I thank you all for your work and your support!

Ona Move!

Mumia Abu-Jamal

© ’13 maj