Learning from ‘La Revolución Bolivariana’: A Conversation with Kali Akuno

Cooperation Jackson is a coop-based organization working for Black self-determination and economic democracy in Jackson, Mississippi. Activist and writer Kali Akuno is one of the project’s founders. In this interview, Akuno discusses his long-standing relationship with the Bolivarian Revolution and his efforts to build connections between the revolutionary process in Venezuela and the work that is being done in Mississippi.

There is a great deal that has been written about Cooperation Jackson, but it would be good to hear from you on what the project is about. 

Cooperation Jackson is a federation of worker cooperatives based in Jackson [Mississippi] working with solidarity organizations and processes committed to Black self-determination. This includes community land trusts. 

The land trust is an instrument that we use to take land out of the speculative market and rebuild the commons. This prevents our community from being “cleansed” by the forces of capital. In our context, this has a political objective: capitalist interests are trying to remove the African and/or Black majority from the city of Jackson because our community has a long history of struggle, which is the base for the progressive politics in our city and the region. Through its [capital’s] removal programs, commonly called gentrification, they eliminate the possibility of radical politics emerging with force.

The land trusts enable us to be defenders of our community while promoting another conception of property based on collective ownership. All this goes hand in hand with our objective of decolonizing the land as much as possible. 

In short, Cooperation Jackson is an instrument to carry out the Jackson-Kush Plan, which is a strategy for Black self-determination and economic democracy. The plan was developed by the New Afrikan People’s Organization and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, which are both part of the New Afrikan Independence Movement. 

However, Cooperation Jackson is also part of the broader anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist movement that aims to dismantle the empire and recreate a new world. That’s basically who and what we are about. 

Both the Bolivarian Process and Cooperation Jackson work to reclaim the land for the people. In fact, Venezuela’s 2001 Land Law was one of the most important advances in the early stages of the revolution. With this and so much more in common between the two projects, could you tell us about your history with the Bolivarian Process?

We have a long history together, even a shared history. I’ll talk first about my relationship with the Bolivarian Process. I heard about Chávez from people on the left around 1997 when I came in contact with the Afro-Venezuelan Network in the meetings leading up to the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa [2001]. 

At that time, the comrades talked about the strength of the social movements in Venezuela. They said that Chávez was gaining momentum with support from the movements. They told me that Chávez’s movement and campaign were dealing with contradictions within Venezuelan society and, most importantly, were beginning to articulate a collective vision for the future. 

Of course, Chávez had been on my radar since the early 90s, but it was then that I began to get wind of many of his ideas, including the proposal for Latin-American integration and the Bolivarian legacy.

I remember that when I began to hear about Bolívar and Chávez, I thought to myself: This cannot play out as it did the first time. Simón Bolívar received a tremendous amount of political and material support from the Haitian Revolution with one single request in exchange: that slavery be abolished. However, the US government recognized the Venezuelan Republic later and isolated Haiti. As a result, slavery was not abolished after independence. 

In the meetings prior to the World Conference Against Racism [2001], I sat down with the Venezuelan comrades and listened to them. They told me that Chávez was fast gaining sympathy from the people of African descent and Indigenous people in Venezuela. As part of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, I listened with great interest. When I went back home I said: We have some comrades there [in Venezuela] who support Chávez and his movement; we need to start paying more attention. 

Fast forward a few years to Hurricane Katrina [August 2005]. President Chávez reached out to us directly through the Black Liberation Movement, asking how the Venezuelan government could help. At that time I was organizing with the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund. Aid and support were sorely needed because, on top of it all, the US government was evicting and displacing the people of New Orleans.

Later, in 2006, we went with a delegation to the World Social Forum in Caracas. It was my first time in Venezuela and I met President Chávez there. The man struck me deeply. He had a small security detail, listened attentively, and was very down to earth. He asked many questions and I explained our position and project. During the conversation, he would turn to his ministers and ask how this or that could be done. There was a real intention to make good on things we talked about in our conversation.

In that meeting, we resolved to cooperate. One of the goals was that the Federation of Southern Cooperatives and the Venezuelan Government sign an agreement to bring food to Venezuela and provide aid to the people of New Orleans through the Hurricane Relief Fund in return. This cooperation would give us leverage and strength in dealing with the US Empire from within, while ensuring other channels for food distribution in Venezuela. In the end, the US government blocked the effort. 

The Venezuelan government and the Afro-Venezuelan Network worked on this very hard, and there were even some initial, mostly symbolic, efforts in this direction, such as the distribution of lightbulbs.

Why wasn’t the agreement carried out in the end? 

The Federation of Southern Cooperatives was given an option: if they signed the agreement with Venezuela, they would no longer be able to get any funding, so they had to back out. 

It was unfortunate. People must understand the extent to which genuine and concrete two-way solidarity has been barred by the US government and how long this has been going on: it didn’t begin only when Venezuela was declared an “unusual and extraordinary threat” [2015].

Fast forward a few years to 2010. At that time, Chokwe Lumumba, chair of the New Afrikan People’s Organization, and I went to Venezuela because Chucho García and Jorge Veloz of the Afro-Venezuelan Network were trying to advance a Left, Pan-African Agenda. All this was being done within the broader ALBA initiative. The US government also shot down these efforts at cooperation.

The last time I was in Venezuela was in 2019 when I traveled there with a Cooperation Jackson delegation for the launch of the Ecosocialist International. We were able to visit several communes and cooperatives then.

Since then I haven’t visited Venezuela. However, I am part of the Black Alliance for Peace, which constantly extends solidarity with the Venezuelan people and their revolutionary process, particularly when support is most needed.

So, you could say that the exchange and solidarity initiatives that you promoted suffered a sort of “blockade before the blockade.” 

The United States government has been intent on destroying the Bolivarian Process since day one. Now, they say that they have problems with Maduro’s so-called anti-democratic practices, which is a catch-all phrase to demonize any government that does not align with US interests. 

However, It’s important that people understand the nature of US imperialism in the Western Hemisphere. Since the Monroe Doctrine [1823], it has claimed the exclusive right to dominate the continent. In turn, any force or movement that challenges its order must be crushed. There’s a long history of this: look at Haiti’s last two hundred-plus years or at Cuba’s last sixty years, to name only two examples. Venezuela is just the US’ latest target.

When it comes to Venezuela, imperialism is going to do whatever it can to undermine its revolutionary process. Everyone knows this and they make no bones about it: from overt sanctions and theft of the country’s assets abroad to covert military actions and the earlier undisclosed blockade, such as the barring of our efforts to send food to Venezuela in 2006 and again in 2010. 

Some call what is happening to Venezuela an “embargo,” but it’s much worse! The US and its partners are actively stealing Venezuela’s assets. The British government seized the country’s gold and then there is the CITGO heist going on in the US. Those are just two among many such raids. They have no fucking authority to do this, but of course that makes no difference to them.

Although some may think the war against the Bolivarian Revolution is recent, it began shortly after Chávez came into power.

We have seen imperialist aggression ramped up in recent years. How has that affected solidarity efforts like the ones you mentioned?

I already told you about the US barring us from entering into an agreement with Venezuela. A few years later, in 2013, Chokwe Lumumba and I were working hard to develop a two-way exchange between the municipal government of Jackson and the Government of Venezuela. Around then President Maduro was to give a speech in the Bronx, and an important initiative was going to be announced there. However, that never happened, because the United States government barred Maduro’s plane from entering its airspace. That was before the Obama Decree and long before the latest wave of election manipulation talk. 

In other words, the US has been at it for a long time: it may be a democratically elected government but they want to turn Venezuela’s process of transformation into a negative example. 

If anyone has any doubts about how the US operates, just look at Palestine. People should also solidarize with Haiti: the US is arming “Haitian gangs” to destabilize the situation while deploying mercenary forces from Kenya to Port Au Prince. Their aim is to keep the country in permanent chaos. Haiti, Palestine, Cuba, and Venezuela are enduring exemplary punishments so that everyone else gets in line. 

The US will do anything to ensure that there is no stable government in a country that proposes an alternative because people in other countries might think: Hey, we can do something like that! We don’t have to be dependent, we can define our future! The US government is hell-bent on destroying the Bolivarian Process since it doesn’t want anything to shine its own light. 

We are hell-bent on defending the Bolivarian Revolution and finding practical ways to do so. Solidarity with Venezuela is needed to unravel the lies that imperialism develops, the political siege, and the blockade. We have to do everything we can to counter the US forces of repression and death. As internationalists, that’s our fundamental task!