InPDUM Member Of The Month

Name: Kwabena Gyakye Kimathi (Scientist)
Location: London, UK
Position: Branch President
Member Since: 2005

 

 

 

 

 

Why did you join Inpdum?

 

 

 

I joined InPDUM for purely selfish reasons (and am still here for those reasons). I first met InPDUM in 2004 at a so-called 'conscious' open mic event in Brixton. I new one of the members and he gave me a join form asking me to talk about their meeting when I got on the mic and encourage people to come to their meeting. I didn't understand what it was that the organization stood for, and was generally suspicious of anything political, as I had seen many talk shops and been disappointed by organizations that were more about personal interest that about taking black people forward.

I would meet the organization again at the same event in the summer of 2005. It was the week after a young African named Anthony Walker had been killed in a white nationalist attack using an axe in Liverpool. I remember my mother being very upset at the time. Not because we new Anthony or his family personally, but because she knew that it was not something that happened in isolation and reminded her how very little power Africans have over our own lives.

An InPDUM member took the mic and announced that their organization would be holding a meeting around the case and had been working to mobilize African's against these kind of attacks and the public policy of police containment. I had never heard the term before, and was still suspicious, but seeing them out again holding the same line impressed me enough to discuss the organization with my worried mother later that week. She encouraged me to go to my first InPDUM meeting at Bilt Mansions in Deptford. I returned to the same venue the following week, with completed join form and membership payment in hand after having studied InPDUM's platform thoroughly.

I had joined as a non-active member for the fact that I was sick of slander, of the life of powerlessness and defeat. I wanted to be part of a strong nation that could defend itself and in turn defend me, my children's and families interests. The political education I was fortunate enough to receive being around the InPDUM and it's founder APSP, began to inform my experience of the world and I realized that a great opportunity to be a part of history by moving Africans towards self determination had been presented to me. It was an opportunity I though I had missed by not being around in the 60's and 70's when revolutionary theory could be heard as the heart beat of African life throughout the world. This was my chance and is your chance too!

Kwabena Gyakye Kimathi
LPO Leader
APSP UK (London Unit)