Understanding the Godbody Movement

Shahidi Islam - Theologian and Author

Peace to the Gods and Goddesses of the foundation;

Much love goes to New York City;

And mad respect to London;

The godbody movement is attached to the streets, therefore it is attached to Black people.

As Huey Newton said, it is the people that make revolution not the vanguard. The vanguard are just the spearhead.

The spearhead without the spear does little damage, in fact it is simply a rock that has little power on its own.

Newton said that it is the job of the vanguard to promote revolution to the people, to lead them towards the process of revolution.

When they are not doing this they are what he calls revolutionary cultists, giving the talk of a revolutionary but their actions betray them.

Newton said that anyone who knowingly does this is a reactionary.

The streets are the centre for revolutionary action because that is where the people are.

The godbody is a form of revolutionary Islam, we have never strayed from these two fundamental principles: revolutionary Islam and anarchism.

We have tried not to be revolutionary cultists, defecting from the community, even though large numbers of them are Christian.

We have nothing against Christianity, and even see it as able to help our people, however, on its own it has only blinded Black people from the truth of their divinity.

But even if most of our Black brothers and sisters are Christian we do not reject them.

As a matter of fact, anyone from any religion can join the godbody so long as they are willing to accept godbody principles.

It is the godbodies’ duty to care for the poor, by doing this properly we become Islamic-anarchists, as poverty is counter-revolutionary.

Aim one of the godbody programme is: we want the voice of the underclass to be heard, rather than just the capitalist class, so that we can work together to make this a better world.

Everyone knows and recognises that the godbody is opposed to the capitalist exploitation of the other classes and the powerlessness of the underclass.

However, I myself am a capitalist (or at least a petty-capitalist) and know there are a number of capitalists who support the godbody or are even members.

Just because the godbody are anti-capitalism does not mean we are anti-capitalist.

Even intellectuals and capitalist apologists accept that there is a class struggle and recognise that it has been going on since humanity first formed into tribes.

They even admit that the establishment of the primitive state came about due to class antagonism – though the creation of laws was far more fundamental towards that end.

What they do not admit though is that the state is a tool of class oppression used by an oppressing social group against an oppressed social group or groups.

The state and its machinery are only used to support the exploiters so that unless the state is crushed the exploited will never be free.

However, the state is slowly disappearing: looking at imperial colonies the old definition of the state as being a power alien from society that is compiled of bureaucratic (politicians, law-makers, civil servants) and military (armies, navies, air forces, police, counterintelligence, etc.) organisations just doesn’t work.

Huey Newton provides a more accurate definition: “Now, I will give you roughly some characteristics that any people who call themselves a nation should have. These are economic independence, cultural determination, control of the political institutions, territorial integrity, and safety.”

Newton said that based on this definition there remain no states.

What has happened in the world to produce this is threefold: the concentration and globalisation of capital; the transmigration of capital; and what Daniel Priestley calls “technology unemployment.”

Capital is getting into fewer and fewer hands while technology is integrating into more and more activities.

With technology thereby able to do more of the functional things we humans used to do jobs are becoming scarcer, on the one hand.

And with businesses and organisations migrating to locations that are tax friendly states are getting less funded, on the other hand.

Governments are thereby receiving less money from taxes due to unemployment and capital flight, and so are forced into implementing austerity measures to survive.

This is in turn causing self-determination, economic determination, and cultural determination, as well as political control and territorial integrity to be handed over to rich capitalists.

Therefore, in all actuality there are no states left in the world, what we have now is interdependent communities.

This is what Huey Newton called intercommunalism, but Newton felt that it is currently a reactionary intercommunalism.

What Newton said was that all we need to do is turn it from a reactionary to a revolutionary intercommunalism.

To do this we need to, first of all, overthrow the last vestiges of the dying state in a revolution.

We can also allow capitalists a chance at redemption for their soul by proving themselves to the Black community.

We have programmes in the godbody designed to give the underclass what they need and give them a voice but we need support for these programmes.

As the godbody is a kind of anarchist movement we seek to overthrow the state, however, we replace the state with ghetto parliaments.

The godbody currently have ghetto parliaments where we discuss issues that we feel are important to the community of the godbody as a movement, and for its continuance.

Though we seek the support of the capitalists to run these parliaments, the godbody will never sell-out to the capitalists, we will keep our aims and purpose ever in our heart.

We can’t even give the capitalists an inch, even though I am myself a petty-capitalist: this is a ghetto movement and must stay a ghetto movement.

Bibliography

Newton, H. P. (2002); The Huey P. Newton Reader; Seven Stories Press.

Priestley, D (2017); 24 Assets: Create a digital, scalable, valuable and fun business that will thrive in a fast changing world; Rethink Press.