The Exile and Global Political Significance
Ben Barka was exiled in 1963, becoming a "travelling salesman of the revolution", according to the historian Jean Lacouture. He left initially for Algiers, where he met Che Guevara, Amilcar Cabral and Malcolm X. From there, he went to Cairo, Rome, Geneva and Havana, trying to unite the revolutionary movements of the Third World for the Tricontinental Conference held in January 1966 in Havana, where he affirmed in a press conference, "the two currents of the world revolution will be represented there: the current emerged with the October Revolution and that of the national liberation revolution".
As the leader of the Tricontinental Conference, Ben Barka was a major figure in the Third World movement and supported revolutionary anti-colonial action in various states, provoking the anger of the United States and France. Just before his death, he was preparing the first meeting of the Tricontinental, scheduled to take place in Havana, Cuba - the OSPAAAL (Spanish for "Organization for Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia and Latin America") was founded on this occasion.
Chairing the preparatory commission, he defined the objectives; assistance with the movements of liberation, support for Cuba subjected to the United States embargo, the liquidation of the foreign military bases and apartheid in South Africa. For the historian René Galissot, "The underlying reason for the removal and assassination of Ben Barka is to be found in this revolutionary impetus of Tricontinentale."
Victoria Brittain, writer for The Guardian, called Ben Barka a "revolutionary theoretician as significant as Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara", whose "influence reverberated far beyond their own continent. His writings have been collected and translated in French by his son Bachir Ben Barka and published in 1999 under the title Écrits politiques (1957–1965).
Read more about this topic: Mehdi Ben Barka
Famous quotes containing the words exile, global, political and/or significance:
“The bond between a man and his profession is similar to that which ties him to his country; it is just as complex, often ambivalent, and in general it is understood completely only when it is broken: by exile or emigration in the case of one’s country, by retirement in the case of a trade or profession.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)
“The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)
“The merely political aspect of the land is never very cheering; men are degraded when considered as the members of a political organization.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)