The US black middle class aspires to a position far beyond its grasp, which is the leadership of the African masses on behalf of Imperialism. Horace Campbell's alleged Pan-Africanism seems to attain higher goals, in reach if not in acquisiton. That is the head of the revolution. However, to be a revolutionary, you have to make struggle where you are and not where you aren't. Campbell ain't in Zimbabwe; he's at Syracuse University.

The criticisms of ZANU PF, altho not lacking in substance, forever deflect all struggle away from Imperialism. I have not seen a single piece criticizing Zimbabwe or South Africa which have made the linkages between Imperialism and the struggle for an unitary African socialist state. That is, after all, the universal vision of Pan African which is dubiously missing from Campbell's writings.

Campbell forgets to show the linkages between the African petty bourgeois of the Motherland and how that same class bears the same relationship to African workers here in North America. Does he kno? Does he recognize the mass appeal of the Zimbabwe revolution in the US black colony and that his unpopular stance will drive him out of -- oh, he doesn't have any street cred -- nevermind.

Campbell is probably the only Pan Africanist in the US who lacks street cred. Kwame Ture had it and so does the AAPRP. Omali Yeshitela has it as does his APSP Uhuru Movement (African Internationalism). The Republic of New Afrika has street cred. These groups can go into prisons and churches. They can go to any city in the US, begin speaking and draw a crowd. The Uhuru Movement can put any of their organizers on the ground in any black community and build a base within days or weeks. What kind of Pan Africanist organization is Horace Campbell affiliated with?

Bourgeois academic policy analysis of the African and Caribbean community does not qualify one as a Pan Africanist or African Internationalist. Campbell's thought is not Kwame Nkrumahist nor Garveyite; it does not reflect Walter Rodney, Amilcar Cabral nor Samora Machel.

The crucial difference is that had Campbell proven from the outset that ZANU was a neo-colonialist party, he would have grounds for building unity with his case. But never does he make the charge that ZANU is neo-colonialist, nor do any of ZANU's detractors. To charge that ZANU is patriarchal, backwards, inefficient, homophobic -- these questions concern social emancipation, not anti-Imperialism -- means that a political education process inside ZANU is necessary for it to take a leap forward.

Campbell is not using dialectics. He is using empiricism. ZANU is still an anti-Imperialist movement and Zimbabwe continues to remain a liberated zone, and all Pan Africanists say HANDS OFF ZIMBABWE!