The Rhetoric of Revolution: The Black Consciousness Movement and the Dalit Panther Movement by Antonette Jefferson, M.A. Ph.D. Student, Howard University Washington, D.C. Abstract The liberation of oppressed people is a global struggle as liberation movements echo one another in proclaiming rights of equality, freedom and liberty inherent to all human beings. The marginalized constituents respond to oppression by donning the armor of struggle to wrest free from the chains of oppression and racism and/or white supremacy. The Black Consciousness Movement headed by Steve Biko, and the Dalit Panther Movement modeled after the Black Panther Party and influenced by the philosophies of Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar create a need for pause as the worldwide implications and potentials of collective liberation are analyzed and realized for the empowerment of people of African descent across the globe. By using generic rhetorical criticism where the text is revolution, the author captures the response of these oppressed groups to the oppressor. Thus, the rhetoric of revolution spans critiques of religion, to identification of “friend-enemies,” to acknowledging the collective struggle of people of African descent. This research contributes to the literature on revolution and African world uplift by analyzing factors associated with impacting change in the Diaspora. Introduction The liberation of oppressed people is a global struggle as liberation movements echo one another in proclaiming rights of equality, freedom and liberty inherent to all human beings which is indeed deserved, but not always realized by the marginalized. And thus, such marginalization in this construct leads constituents to response to oppression by donning the armor of struggle to wrest free from the chains of oppression and racism and/or white supremacy. 46 The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.2, no.5, July 2008 Therein, the Black Consciousness Movement headed by Steve Biko, and the Dalit Panther Movement modeled after the Black Panther Party and influenced by the philosophies of Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar created a need for pause as the worldwide implications and potentials of collective liberation are analyzed and realized for the empowerment of people of color across the globe. Therefore, this realization is captured in the response of the oppressed to the oppressor, where the rhetoric of revolution (in a broad sense) spans from consciousness-raising to violent action and has been utilized as a strategy for liberation. Methodology Generic rhetorical criticism is utilized to investigate the rhetoric of the Black Consciousness Movement and the Dalit Panther Movement. Rather than looking at one specific speech or eulogy, I look at revolution as a meta-text. The specific words and actions of revolutionaries in the Dalit Panther Movement and Black Consciousness Movement, as well as the idea of revolution, serve as an intertwined helix of text and meta-text. Here leaders can apply rhetorical criticism to help understand and agitate for future revolutions to impact change; and the “observable, explicable and predictable rhetorical commonalities” of revolution thus serve as a genre by which leaders describe and devise methods to continue the struggle for equality and change (Kuypers, 2005). The methodology herein considers similarities in the approach of revolutionary leaders, as well as the common collective heritage of the Dalits, South Africans, and other people of the African Diaspora. According to Rajshekar (1987), the Dalits are the descendents of the Africans who founded the Indus Valley Civilization and who were enslaved by fair skinned Aryans from the North. He goes on to state that the separation of the struggle of African Americans in the United States from other people of African descent in the Diaspora is deleterious to the collective uplift of a people. Rajshekar (1987) speaks of the similarities between Dalits and African Americans (and by extension, other people of African descent): While feeling free to pronounce on human rights issues in relation to other countries, both India and the US strongly reject any outside “interference” (criticism) of their own minority relations. Both multi-ethnic states promote the ideal of nonviolence among their oppressed minorities while not hesitating to resort to violence either in relations with other states, or in repression of minority demands. And lastly and most perniciously, both seek to imply that the oppressed minority’s current plight is due in some way to its own misdeeds… (p. 5). 47 The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.2, no.5, July 2008 While Rajshekar speaks of African Americans and the Dalits, Black South Africans are also considered in this research; and in fact, the research has implications for people of the African Diaspora although it is more narrowly focused on the movements of the Dalits and South Africans. Existing Literature There is a plethora of research on revolution, including that which investigates how oppressed persons of African descent have conceptualized and begun to address the issues of racism/white supremacy. Kwame Ture’s Black Power, Amos Wilson’s Blueprint for Black Power, Cedric Robinson’s Black Marxism, and Kwame Agyei and Akua Nson Akoto’s The Sankofa Movement have addressed revolution among people of African descent. These texts have provided a critique of American society, recommendations for black empowerment, and steps for psychological and physical revolution. The colonization of African people throughout the globe, including the United States (as explored by Kwame Ture) has set the tone for this literature to become manifest. And, it is through the deconstruction and reconstruction of revolutionary rhetoric that leaders can begin to highlight the challenges in bringing about change in the interest of the Black collective. There has also been research done to investigate the similar plights between people of African descent throughout the Diaspora, specifically in India. The Black Panther Party Legacy & Alumni, African American Policy Forum, work done by Vijay Prashad and Runoko Rashidi have begun to reveal the common plight of the Dalits, African Americans and other peoples of the African Diaspora. In Runoko Rashidi’s Global African Presence History Notes, he begins to unravel the complex history of the Dalits and highlight the consubstantiality of the Dalits and other persons of African descent. Socio-Political Environment Understanding the socio-political environment in which the liberation movements of people of African descent occurred is central to grasping the subtle and not so subtle nuances of liberation movements. As the Black Power Movement received international attention during the mid-late twentieth century, the movement set the stage for concomitant and subsequent anti-systemic movements. Accordingly, this happened because movements do not exist in a vacuum and oppression has common features and is the reason why each of the liberation movements occurred essentially simultaneously (Wallerstein, 1999). 48 The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol.2, no.5, July 2008 Thus, the movements of people and intellectual capital through the spread of education, international and transnational trade, and media have been instrumental in creating a connected society whereby peoples can be and are influenced by tangential, adjacent and direct causal relationships with other peoples around the world (Friedman, 2005). Therefore, it is no coincidence that the global milieu set the stage for concurrent action by people of African descent. Furthermore, the success and/or perceived success of these movements propelled each group to continued action. In this context, Wallerstein (1999) offers that movements occur because of the past success of other movements, and states: No, it is not oppression that mobilizes masses, but hope and certainty—the belief that the end of oppression is near, that a better world is truly possible. And nothing reinforces such hope and certainty more than success. The long march of the antisystemic movements has been like a rolling stone. It gathered momentum over time. And the biggest argument that any given movement could use in order to mobilize support was the success of other movements that seemed comparable and reasonably close in geography and culture (p. 3). Therefore it can be said that these revolutionary movements were linked in the tapestry of global liberation movements. They also dovetailed on earlier movements of the African National Congress (ANC) is South Africa, Dr. Ambedkar’s movement in India and the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The momentum of hope incited the people to action, so they could fight for equality and liberation. Not only did these earlier movements impact the Dalit Panther and Black Consciousness Movement, but communism also impacted these movements (Franklin, 1994). And despite the nominal defeat of communism following the Cold War, Marxist philosophies would come to inform the movements of people of African descent and the Dalits in India. Essentially the sole nemesis of capitalism and arguably the basis of an entire World War, hence ideals of an egalitarian society would serve as a powerful force motivating the conscious efforts of the oppressed to transform society. Thus, communism as a philosophy and movement, along with the rhetoric arising from the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Ambedkar’s movement and the ANC became defining features of the philosophies of the later movements of the Dalit Panther