Mumia's statement for Atonement Day—October 16, 1996

By Mumia Abu-Jamal, 16 October 1996

Ona Move! Long Live John Africa!

On this day a question comes to mind.

For what do the capitalists of Babylon have to atone? In this land, mislabeled as the land of the free, over a million men and women stagnate in cages, an estimated three million people are in search of a home, and over 30 million subsist in direst poverty.

For what do we have to atone? Is our poverty, our homelessness or our captivity a sin? And if it be a sin, who has sinned against whom? And who needs to atone?

This nation has become a Vampire under the jugular vein of our Mother Earth, it has slaked its sordid thirst with the blood of millions. It threatens to poison the very foundation of Life for its highest principle of profit.

Who needs to atone?

It has made law a commodity of the wealthy and justice a bitter memory, it courts are corals of New Age slavery, its judges are priests of property. Its legislators representatives or repression. Its schools are cemetaries of consciousness.

Who needs to atone?

For the unfree, for the poor, for the homeless, for the damned, atonement brings nothing but another nightmare at days end.

What slavemaster dare ask his slave to forgive him? The freed need freedom. The poor need the resources with which to live. The homeless need decent housing. And the damned need a true salvation.

For them, for us, for us all, revolution is the only solution.

Let us unite. Let us organize. Let us rebel against a system that, as John Africa says, Quote: GIVES NOTHING BUT PAIN TO OUR FAMILIES, OUR BABIES, unquote.

Ona Move! LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA!

Mumia Abu-Jamal