WHO’S TONY MARTIN? Event review by Tuggstar

Tony Martin is the foremost scholar on the life and works of ; he works and has tenure in in Massachusetts. He was invited for the First Voice conference, where he was to share a platform with the child of WEB Dubois, Kwame Nkrumah, Malcolm X… an event put on by the Mayors office… He was then dis-invited…

To quickly summarise, he had a five-month-old invite and race advisor to the mayor Lee Jasper, dis-invited him, much to his dismay. And to the dismay of a large sector of the black community, especially the grass roots organisers. So they grouped together to bring him to , where he cleared up a lot of issues. It was alleged that on the basis of him sharing a platform with people who were labelled anti- Semitic, his invitation was withdrawn. (Just in case you’re wondering, he wasn’t actually invited to a Jewish conference, but one for black history month) which began a feud between the African community, and the mayor’s office.

Come the day, there were a lot of organisational issues, which like a glass of water can be seen as half empty or half full. For on the day of his first lecture “The Jewish Onslaught” it was supposed to be at a place named Trini’s, but apparently the owner (not manager) was Jewish and ensured the place wasn’t open for the occasion. I had to commend the speed in which a contingency plan was put into place. There is a club named Ezekiel’s which allowed the organiser to have their space for reduced rates, which was just down the road from the initial venue, texts and communications from foreign numbers went round to inform people of the change.

However, the place was far too small and too hot for the event. There was also a long delay in getting the event to start because there were people upstairs, and there was technical difficulties in getting the people up stairs to view the wide screen tv. Consequently it took about two hours to get everything working… understandably people were fed up of waiting. The organisers could have begun at any time. Though I commended the fact that they saw the people upstairs as relevant and as important as the people down stairs and they weren’t starting until they could get adequate exposure.

Before Tony spoke they had some ceremonial fundamentals, such as the drumming, the libation, others speakers explaining the organisations and also a play by some of the organisations youth. People again thought it should be cut down, but again I think a lot of people came out, (in a sense, like play settings… “I heard Lee jasper’s fighting Tony Martin”) and they know nothing of the organisations putting in work in their area, or those that were involved in putting on the event. So I felt it as important people knew.

The play was a well-put together, Anansi story, which lightened the atmosphere of the audience. Then came Tony Martin to a rapturous standing ovation. I hadn’t heard him speak before, and the way he was portrayed with regards to this whole “anti Semitism” thing, I imagined, a big firery speaker. (I didn’t even know he was from the islands. Trinidad, I believe.) But brother was cool, and just taught away. He said how the dis-invitation, was just one in a long line of acts that British gov, had done in dis-inviting our people, he talked about the world war I sailors, being dis-invited, some of the freed slaved in 1599 being tricked on boat and sent to Serria Leone, about Enoch Powell an MP who wanted to send the immigrants back to the islands. (or wherever they came from)

He talked about his infamous email that he received from Lee Jasper, and him turning around and asking some of his contacts in London, “Jasper, who is he? Is he a white man?” And his surprise of finding out he was black. And the contents of the emails, that admitted, “we’re not saying you’re anti-semetic, but you shared a stage with people on the panel who were” Its as ludicrous as saying 50cent is a pro-black revolutionary because he shard a stage with Dead Prez… stupid. So Tony cleared up the dis-inv ition. It goes back into ’93…

Tony wasn’t making any accusation, not calling names, he stated I am a historian, and all I do, is go to where the facts take me, so while updating his reading list, (as all good prof. do) one of his subjects is the slave trade, which he says, everyone, from Christians, to Muslims, to Arabs, to Africans, had a role in it. And all have admitted their role. A new book had come out named “The Secret Relationship between Blacks and Jews” a book written by the , when it first came the Jews came out and attempted to get Farrakhan to rebuke and apologise for the book. He s aid in reply, “When you rebuke the Jewish scholars in the book, I will rebuke the book.” For all the evidence used are from Jewish sources, which conclusively proves their role in the slave trade. (Martin emphasised that he was not saying they were the only people, but they played a significant role) so he recommended certain parts of the book to his students. Then all hell broke lose and he was taken aback by such a reaction of factual information. It was on all the mainstream channels, on talk shows, in the press, pressure from his university. He was hounded wherever he went. even enlisted another black historian named Henry Louis Gates to write a full page article (in the design of the star of David) against Martin, and Martin’s reply wasn’t even acknowledged so he published his book “The Jewish Onslaught” He was amazed about the Jewish networking, drawing power, and power of response. He was invited to speak at one place and the mayor held a press conference rebuking him. But he didn’t back down one inch, and he gave praise to the black community who came out strong in his support, be it radio, press and various students organisations.

The reaction that happened in the states much mirrored what went on in England. Although Lee jasper told people it was his decision, Martin received a fax from the Jewish Chronicle based in England that quoted a Jewish MP from Liverpool who was boasting about how she contacted the mayor’s office and prevented Tony Martin from coming.

THE JEWISH ISSUE

He said, throughout history Africans have been the only people who haven’t caused Jews any trouble, in fact from a biblical standpoint, we came out and defended the Jews. Though they have been instigators in plaguing racism, for they admitted in their Talmud, they doctor a nonsense story that states Africans were cursed by Noah to be servitude to other races. (Again he used Jewish scholars who admit it was the first piece of racism in religious text)

There is a book entitled “How the Jews invented Hollywood,” and his point is if you claim invention of something such as Hollywood, then you must also take responsibility for the harm it has done, with the creation of the minstrels, and depiction of black people.

He went on to say how there has been a long-standing relationship with blacks and Jews, and because the Jews had their tragedies, it has been used to form working relationship with the black struggle. But when it is scrutinised, only the integrationists received support. Which basically struggled for dependence, however they were always opposed to the black, self reliant, nationalist stance. For example, Jews set up The NAACP and they never had their first black chairman until 1975. In his day, WEB Dub ois vehemently opposed him, (Martin refers to him as the Uncle Tom of his day) and when Marcus Garvey was sent to prison for mail fraud, it was a Jewish judge who was also in the NAACP who ensured he got the maximum sentence.

In the sixties where the struggle turned from integration to nationalism, and people such as , called for Black Power, there was no Jewish support at all, and they were even opposed to affirmative action.

CONCLUSION He also did a good speech on Garvey the following day, which was again over-filled, so people came out in the droves, and all the organisation were present, I didn’t see one significant organisation that wasn’t there, and it’s the first time I have seen the co-ordination of various organisations from all the pan-african groups, New Black Panther Party, Nation of Islam, Galaxy radio… I brought my cousin from Ghana over too and he was so happy he came; he said how he always wanted to know about Marcus Garvey cause he had read about him in some of Nkrumah’s literature. (Tony emphasised how many people Garvey had influenced, from all the islands first presidents, to first president of Ghana and Nigeria. That Garvey worked out a formula to communicate with all African people whether they were African continental, or diasporic, Francophone, or Anglophone, Australian aboriginal, and the authorities were so scared that there was a case in Zimbabwe where a man was caught with a Negro World (Garvey’s newspaper) and sentenced to Life in prison.

In conclusion, the Jews really need to address the issues they have with us, it is not for us to address. Like Tony said, if you were involved in bad practices then, it’s okay. Just acknowledge it, apologise and give us £70 billion. But what really annoyed me is that if he wasn’t allowed to come, so many people wouldn’t have learnt as much as they did, especially the food of knowledge satisfying my cousin the way it did, he was buzzing. And Jasper needs to be careful and enter into dialogue with these communities, because he was acting as an agent for another group of people to prevent his own people from hearing someone his people NEEDED to hear.