August/September 2005

http://alawda.newjerseysolidarity.org

Manifest Liberation

Dead Man Walking
Amir Sulaiman
www.amirsulaiman.com

Combining the spirit of June Jordan, Amiri Baraka, and the Last Poets with the heart and soul of Nat Turner, Sitting Bull and the Black Panthers, Atlanta-based Amir Sulaiman may be the most dangerous poet alive. His words offer an intense vision of liberation and sacrifice, struggle and freedom, anger and hope, passion and faith. Sulaiman’s album Dead Man Walking is a beautiful explosion of hiphop beats, samples, conversations, and - most of all - poetry, sometimes whispered, sometimes shouted, never less than brilliant and inspiring.

And I wish I could just
Sing for justice
But I know no such song
I know about…
Jihad, Martyrdom, and homemade bombs.
And sure you must think I’m wrong
For talking about home-made bombs
But the leader of the free world
Can drop A-bombs and napalm
And got the nerve to ask
“Why do they hate us?”
When they still got blood on their palms

Dead Man Walking is more than an album; it is a composed, rational, passionate and sustained argument for martyrdom in the cause of revolution. It is a brilliant work of art, a roadmap to liberation, a call to arms, and a manifesto all at once. Aligning himself with the victimized and erased around the world and throughout history, he vows to set free

the souls of the Navajo
the souls of the Iroquois
the souls of the Ibo
the souls of the Scottsboro boys
the souls of great Black leaders
the souls of Kandahar and Baghdad
I burn my white and raise my black flag

A writer, activist, educator and spoken word artist, Sulaiman has been performing live since 1996. A devout Black Muslim, his words reflect the oppressions he faces. “In a new world, wrought nearly insane with paranoia, I, simply by being Muslim, have become a threat. In an old world, still stuck in the muck of racism, I, as a young Black man, am still a threat. This fear is further compounded by my refusal to remain silent in the face of such blatant hypocrisy, thievery, and tyranny.” In response to the New World order, he writes poems to listen to as you resist oppression, "facing down a tank with nothing but Allah and a rock."

Early on in the album, he defines his struggle as "the total, utter and apparent liberation of the mind, of the soul, of the body, of the land, of the limbs and the wealth." Later he adds that you must “free the soul and the body simultaneously. The revolution of the mind and the revolution of the gun must happen at the same time. That is Manifest Liberation.” There are “three steps to revolution - Desire it in the heart, speak it with the tongue, take it with the hands.”

In front of an audience, including on a recent appearance on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, Sulaiman is pure electricity. While he’s on stage, anything seems possible. "I am not angry, I am anger. I am not dangerous, I am danger,” Sulaiman tells us in "Danger," one of his most incendiary pieces. The poem is a sonic revolt against hundreds of years of oppression, embracing all forms of resistance in the name of justice and freedom.

Justice is somewhere between reading sad poems
and 40 ounces of gasoline crashing through windows
Justice is between plans and action
between writing letters to Congressmen and clapping the captain
between raising legal defense funds
and putting a gun on the bailiff and taking the judge captive
it is between prayer and fasting
between burning and blasting
Freedom is between the mind and the soul
it is between the lock and the load
between the zeal of the young and the patience of the old
Freedom is between the finger and the trigger
it is between the page and the pen
between the grenade and the pin
between righteous anger and keeping one in the chamber

It may be words like this that have brought the attention of the US Government. FBI Agents have visited his family, friends and associates, and he’s been added to the notorious “no fly” list. But he expresses no fear – instead, he says, “coming forward in the name of justice is a sacred obligation upon us all. We must give hope to the hopeless souls (and) warning to the obstinate tyrants.” All he asks is “for more voices to come forward in the name of justice for the sake of all of us and our families.”

Dead Man Walking is the soundtrack to a riot. It is the voice of those who have had their tongues removed, their homes destroyed and their languages forgotten. It is a cry of revolt and resistance when hope seems almost lost. In the climax of Danger, he says,

I’m a teenage Palestinian
opening fire on an Israeli checkpoint
Pointblank
Checkmate
Now what?
...I am David
with a slingshot and a rock
and if David lived today
he’d have a Molotov cocktail and a glock,
so I say down with goliath
I say down with goliath
But we must learn, know, write, read
we must kick, bite, yell, scream
we must pray, fast, live, dream, fight, kill, and die free.