KWAME TURE: ZIONISM IS THE BABY CHILD OF IMPERIALISM

KWAME TURE: ZIONISM IS THE BABY CHILD OF IMPERIALISMRemembering a Pan-African Revolutionary

On November 15, the world marked 27 years since the passing of Kwame Ture in Conakry, Guinea. Born Stokely Carmichael in Trinidad and Tobago, Ture became one of the most influential voices of the 20th century. His journey spanned continents and movements: from the anticolonial ferment of the Caribbean, to the Black Power struggle in the United States, and ultimately to the founding of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP) on African soil.

Ture’s legacy is inseparable from his insistence that African liberation was bound up with global struggles against colonialism and imperialism. Among these, he consistently highlighted Palestine as a central front.

Palestine as a North Star

Throughout his career, Ture argued that Zionism was not simply a nationalist project but a settler-colonial one. He described it as “the baby child of imperialism,” a system sustained by Western powers and designed to suppress indigenous peoples. At a time when much of the Western Left was hesitant to adopt this analysis, Ture’s clarity stood out.

For him, solidarity with Palestine was not optional—it was a moral and political necessity for anyone committed to anticolonial struggle.

Questioning Zionism’s Premise

Ture often posed a provocative question: Is Zionism truly about providing an oppressed people with a sovereign homeland? If so, why does Israel collaborate so closely with the world’s leading imperialist powers?

He traced the origins of Zionist Israel to British colonial policy. Palestine, under British mandate, became the site of a mass transfer engineered by the United Kingdom. In Ture’s words, Britain sought to expel Jews from Europe while simultaneously reshaping its colonial holdings. He argued that this act was itself deeply anti-Semitic, instrumentalizing Jewish suffering for imperial ends.

Imperial Alliances and Proxy Power

Ture emphasized that no African committed to liberation could respect a state so deeply tied to colonial powers. Israel’s reliance on Britain in its early years, and later on the United States for funding and military support, revealed its role as a proxy state in the Middle East.

By the 1980s and 1990s, Ture was explaining to audiences across Africa, Europe, and the Americas how Zionist Israel functioned as a strategic outpost for U.S. imperial interests. In his analysis, Israel was not an independent project of liberation but a cornerstone of Western domination in the region.

A Legacy of Global Solidarity

Kwame Ture’s critique of Zionism was part of his broader vision: a world where African liberation was inseparable from the freedom of all oppressed peoples. His insistence on connecting struggles—from Harlem to Conakry, from Johannesburg to Gaza—remains a powerful reminder of the global nature of resistance.

As the anniversary of his passing is commemorated, his words continue to resonate: Zionism, in his view, was never simply about homeland—it was about empire. And empire, he believed, must always be resisted.