Organization Is The Weapon Of The Oppressed
Ferguson, Mobilization, and Organizing the Resistance!
| by Ajamu Nangwaya
Leaders who do not act dialogically, but insist on imposing their decisions, do not organize the people–they manipulate them. They do not liberate, nor are they liberated: they oppress.
– Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
( August 22, 2014, Missouri, Sri Lanka Guardian) The rebellion in Ferguson, Missouri, against the killing of unarmed Afrikan American teenager Michael Brown has inspired me to reflect on the question of the organizing model versus mobilizing or mobilization model in the struggle for Afrikan liberation in North America as well as the broader humanistic fight for liberation from various forms of oppression. Organizing the oppressed for emancipation is the preferred approach to engaging them in the fight for their liberation as opposed to merely mobilizing them.
