Mumia: = Mumia Abu-Jamal;
B: = Bill Anderson

Mumia: Good morning, and thank YOU for allowing me to join you this morning. I wanted to thank you, Bill, and your dad, and the WHAT and WCHJ family for being so supportive. Ask your questions.

B: Well, plain and simple, a lot has come out over the last couple of days over alleged statements that were made several years ago. When you first heard about Mr. Bloch's statements, what was your response?

Mumia: Anger ... anger and then a kind of amusement, I mean, I laughed. Laughing, of course, was not my first reaction, I was angry and then I laughed because it's utterly ridiculous. It doesn't pass the laugh test, as they used to say about the OJ trial. How do you go from Socrates to, "Yeah, I did it." I mean it's incredible, it's not even logical. That's the point.

B: Did you have the type of relationship with Mr. Bloch that he claims you had?

Mumia: Well, he was an official prison visitor, that is, a member of the Pennsylvania Prison Society. These are people who can visit any prisoner in any prison in the Commonwealth, any state prison. So, I did visit with him on several occasions because I was telling him about things that were happening at Huntingdon. People were being beaten, people were being starved. It's a very vicious jail, I wrote about it in some detail in "Live From Death Row." But he was ONE among MANY, I mean the question that must come to anyone is, why HIM, who is HE? You know? And it's just patently illogical. I don't know what his motivation is, but I think we shall learn that in time. Perhaps it's his quest to have his 15 minutes of fame, I don't know and I really don't care. But I think it shows a kind of desperation on the other side. And it shows a kind of acknowledgment, in their minds at least, that people are not ...

(PRISON: This call is coming from a correctional facility)

Mumia: ... People do not believe the lie that two cops forgot a confession for two months. So this is their attempt to kind of supplement that lie with another lie.

B: There has been, and again as the media gets a hold of this they have made statements that many people know not to be true, but one of the statements is that you have never stated publicly that you are innocent. Is that true?

Mumia: Well, all one has to do is, again, go through the transcript of the trial. I said that to the people who it mattered most to, not to the media, but to the JURY. I told them that at my trial, it's in the transcript, it's in writing, you don't have to believe anything I say. Look at the transcript and see what it said. Again, people will say whatever they want to say, but the record is the record.

B: This person clearly is not a friend of yours.

Mumia: I would not say so, no.

B: OK, and that is what he is presenting. With all of this that is taking place and as long as you have been dealing with these situations, do you still maintain positive feelings about your struggle for a new trial?

Mumia: I have positive feelings about my people, about our supporters, about the need to battle and campaign for it. Do I have positive feelings about the Pennsylvania judiciary? I mean, come on, do you? Does anybody? But you do what you must, we do what we must because we understand the nature of the system. We understand that justice is not a right that is granted to people, that people must FIGHT for it, you see. And that's my reality and that's yours as well, it's all of our realities. Also ...

B: I'm sorry, go ahead...

Mumia: ... I just wanted to say I heard you and Mary yesterday and I had a big belly laugh. It has been about 17 or 18 years since I talked to Mary, and of course we have never had the pleasure of discussing things -- you and I. But the points that she was making and the points that you were making were absolutely on key. I mean, all one has to do is use their common sense. That's all you have to do. And, you know, why NOW?...

B: Um-hmmm.

Mumia: ... Ask yourself that question and then seek for that answer. I can't tell you that, I mean, I haven't heard from this guy since 1992.

B: One of the things that often comes up with me as we discuss this case is how you stay so focused on addressing so many other issues and continuing to write, recording the different segments on different issues, releasing statements on different injustices taking place in the country and in the world. How do you stay so focused on those issues when clearly you are in a daily struggle for your own life?

Mumia: Well, you know, aren't we all? I mean, we live in a situation... Ask yourself if the parents and cousins of Tyeisha Miller now believe that they are in a struggle for their lives. They didn't think so before what happened to their daughter happened. Ask if the family, the mother and father of Amadou Diallo, from Senegal, thought they were in a struggle for their lives. They didn't think so until what happened to their son. But the reality of the situation is ALL of us, everyday, are involved in struggles for our lives. We may not perceive it that way because we are caught up in this kind of consumerist corporate culture, but one day Amadou Diallo was just an average guy, and the next day he was a martyr. So no one knows what today will bring, do they? And I'm involved, I guess, with movements of people around the world because we're all, we're all...

(PRISON: This call is coming from a correctional facility)

Mumia: ... all sharing the same life and the same breath. Because I FEEL for those people and they feel for myself. I want to thank also my sister Pam Africa, who has been there when I could not get there, been my voice and my spirit to people who could not be close to me and talk to me. She has been on top of the game, I mean really superb.

B: There are a couple of people here in Philadelphia, a couple of talk show hosts here in Philadelphia, who are outspoken in opposing you and want to ask several questions. I am not going to dive into legal questions for obvious reasons, they are to be addressed by those with that legal background, but do you look forward to the opportunity to tell your side of the story if that opportunity is finally granted?

Mumia: I look forward to a NEW TRIAL, Bill. Something that .. My lawyer, Len Weinglass, was the first to say it but obviously he wasn't the first to think it ... This is a guy who taught at law school for a while, was a lawyer, has been a lawyer for perhaps 25, 30 years.... When he read the transcript and reviewed the case he said, "You haven't had a trial." And that's because all of the so-called protections and rights that this alleged constitution grants to people, it looks fine when you read it on paper, it looks great when you read it in a law book, but when you walk into a courtroom and say, "This is my right and I demand this," they look at you like you've come from Mars or from the moon. The RIGHT to self-representation, the RIGHT to examine and cross-examine witnesses, the RIGHT to have witnesses in your DEFENSE, the RIGHT to open and close to a jury. The right of SELF-representation or representation by a lawyer of your choosing. None of those are really rights. They're words on paper that like any other amendments to the constitution that have been written in there for hundreds of years, when you apply them in a courtroom you find out they are legal fictions, they don't exist.

B: Another thing that has come up, and Pam and I have had constant interaction with and is very quick to say, is that anybody that has questions she is happy to debate them and discuss the details of the actual case.

Mumia: Absolutely.

B: Have you maintained that same level, I mean obviously not the same level of accessibility, but have any of these individuals who are so outspoken in opposition to you, particularly in the media, ever reached out for you?

Mumia: No, no, they have not. No, no, no. In fact, this recent so-called now remembered confession ... I learned about it when YOU learned about it, by reading about it in the paper, hearing about it on the radio, you see. So, no, no, no, no, no ... no, no, no, no, no. We're involved in what I like to call snuff journalism, and that means a journalism that supports one side of the story to the exclusion of any other side. There is ONLY one side to them and that is the system's side, the media's side. And I mean you can see that every day. Those who have money and have power, THEY are the people that the media supports. Those who are poor and powerless, who DON'T have money, they're the potential bad guy in the situation. And the reality of the situation is that the media supports power as it is structured and it doesn't support those who challenge those power elites or those power interests. It demonizes, in fact, it demonizes. Look at it this way.. if you examine critically what Phil ...

(PRISON: This call is coming from a correctional facility)

Mumia: ... If you examine critically what Phil Bloch claims, then doesn't that sound kind of diametrically opposed to what those two cops CLAIMED they heard and forgot the night of December 9, 1981. Because on the one hand they say, "Oh yeah, Mumia said, 'Yeah I shot the m.f. and I hope he dies.'" And then they have this guy come out and say "Oh yeah, do you feel any remorse", "Oh yeah, uh-huh, yeah." I mean isn't that LEGALLY and LOGICALLY inconsistent? It can't BOTH be true, can it? You get my point?

B: The whole situation to those who have read it, it doesn't make a lot of sense, and as I have pointed out before, not having ever met you but reading different statements and things, that would apparently, if it was true, would be a statement from just a silly person ...

Mumia: Yeah.

B: ... a fool. And that was not the presentation that I had been given. WHY is it, and that's a question that comes up again and I don't know if it's for legal reasons or what have you, you write a lot of different statements, you make a lot of different statements, why haven't you addressed, even I guess with friendly media, the things that took place. Are you waiting for that legal opportunity, or ...

Mumia: I'm waiting for a NEW TRIAL. I have a right to A trial, a NEW trial. I have a right to every right that that constitution says you have, not one, not two, not a half, not an eighth, you know. Or else just declare me a non-citizen. I mean it might sound absurd but there are NO rights, there are no rights until someone tries to exercise them. Then you find out truly what rights you have. Now of course Dred Scott told us that there are NO rights that a black man has that white men are bound to respect. That was written in 1857 and we are supposedly in 1999. Those of us who know this system know that that's still the law. Well, you know, SAY IT.

(PRISON: One minute remaining)

B: Well, I hear that and we do need to go ahead and wrap it up, but it almost sounds like rather than compromise you'd be willing to pay the ultimate price. Summarize for us briefly and leave us with the messages you'd like the listening audience to have.

Mumia: Well, I thank you for asking intelligent questions and I ask everyone to ask just simple questions like this. Is it logical, does it make sense, is it consistent. That's all. Because once you ask those questions...

(PRISON: 30 seconds remaining)

Mumia: ... the answers HAVE to come to you, and show that this is the latest fabrication, it is a lie standing on top of two or three other lies and it shows their sense of desperation that people don't believe their lies anymore. I thank you for this opportunity. I thank WHAT and WCHJ. ONA MOVE, LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA.

B: You stay strong.

Mumia: And you.

(END TRANSCRIPT)

For more information on obtaining tapes of this interview, contact Bill Anderson at 215-581-5191.

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