The world on fire

Guess what? The world is on fire!

I don’t mean environmental degradation or global warming; no, although that too is true.

I refer to protests, not just all across the United States but all around the world.

Imprisoned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal

Protests from London to Paris; from Berlin to Nairobi; from Toledo, Ohio, to Tokyo, Japan.

Protests in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and against police aggression and racism.

Protests stemming from the cruel brutality that led to the slow-motion killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn.

The solidarity from Sydney, Australia, stems in part from the long-standing discontent from the dark Aborigines, the Indigenous communities in Australia and New South Wales, who like Black folk in America, have suffered from generations of state repression.

For example, in the recent murder of David Dungay, an Aborigine, who like his brothers and sisters in America, his last words were ”I can’t breathe,” as they choked him to death.

And how have the cops responded to this challenge? With tantrums. With attacks on protesters, male or female. A 75-year-old white man who was pushed to the ground as they stepped over his fallen and bleeding body.

America is on fire and the world has caught the blaze.

From incarcerated nation, I am Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Transcribed from a June 7 audio column posted on prisonradio.org.