Kwame Ture - Organisation vs Mobilisation
Overview
A speech by Kwame Ture addressing the relationship between organization and mobilization.
Key Takeaways
On the difference between organizers and mobilizers:
“We must make clear distinctions between mobilizers and organizers. To be an organizer you must be a mobilizer, but being a mobilizer does not make you an organizer. Much confusion is to be found here. Malcolm X was a great mobilizer. He was a great organizer. Martin Luther King was a great mobilizer. He was not a great organizer. These facts can be easily seen from King and Malcolm. When Malcolm went to a place he left a mosque. When King went to demonstrations, he broke down segregation and he moved on.
As a matter of fact, King was not concerned with organization to the point that even thought he was the most popular baptist preacher in America without the shadow of doubt, and probably beyond the shadow of a doubt the most loved, he could not become president of the National Baptist Convention.” —Kwame Ture
On how our instinct for mobilization can be used to distract organizations:
“We say that we must come to know the difference between mobilization and organization because the enemy will use mobilization to demobilize us. Mobilization is very easy. Very, very easy. Since we are a people who are instinctively ready to respond against acts of injustice, any time there’s one little act of injustice, we can blow it up and we will find people who will come and make some mass demonstration around it. ‘Ms Sally lost her job, let’s rally, she’ll get her job back.’ People will come and rally. ‘So and so got kicked out of school because the teachers unjust.’ Unjust, the people will come and rally. They will come to rally at issues.
And this is what mobilization does, it mobilizes people around issues. Those of us who are revolutionary are not concerned with issues, we are concerned with the system. The difference must be properly understood. The difference must be properly understood. Mobilization usually leads to reform action, not to revolutionary action.” —Kwame Ture
On how organized movements succumb to the superficiality of social events:
“If we were to look scientifically at the October 16th, Million and More March, we would see clearly that this was a mobilized event, not an organized event. We must know clearly the difference between mobilization and organization. One of the characteristics of mobilization is that it is temporary. Organization is permanent and eternal. Clear differences must be made because the unconscious can usually be captured easily around one issue items, around mobilization items, but it’s hard to capture them around organization. But these unconscious must be brought to organization.
We must transform mobilization to organization. We say the enemy will try to use mobilization to demobilize us. "Many brothers and sisters who’ve been to the million and more march will say to you, ‘I was there.’ Well what are you doing today my sister? ‘I was there. There weren’t too many sisters out there, but you know with a million brothers you know where I had to be. I was there.’ Yes, and then of course you find brothers, ‘I was there, I was there.’ What are you doing today brother?
If we’re not careful, we allow mobilization to become an event. The struggle is never an event it’s a process, a continual eternal process.” —Kwame Ture
On organization as the foundation for our power:
“We say it is our job to use mobilization to drive us to organization. You know our theme is organization. We want power. We don’t want money, we don’t want fame, we don’t want fortune, we don’t want popularity, we want power. Power, and power comes only from the organized masses. Power comes only from the organized masses. Therefore since this is what we’re concerned with, power, and we as Pan-Africanists have every right to be concerned with it, Africa after all is the richest continent on the face of the earth, properly organized she’d be the most powerful on the face of the earth. Therefore our drive towards power is clear.” —Kwame Ture