This is an attempt at political analysis and expresses my opinion in addition to grievances from communities I am close to. I am not affiliated with or involved in the “Justice for Nelson” campaign.

Black women and Queer siblings have been at the front line of feminist struggles, abolitionism and transformative justice, but the defense and inclusion of abusers in political work and campaigning is unfortunately still a common thread in some communities. As a tragic result of this practice, a man convicted for the killing of his ex-girlfriend has become one of the faces of the “Justice for Nelson” campaign, and is also being platformed by another person, Glenda Obermuller, founder of the Theodor Wonja Michael Bibliothek in Cologne.

While it has been known in Berlin, that someone with a history of violence against women was involved in the campaign, which led other organizers to feel that this was not a safe or even remotely open space for them, the full extent has only now been exposed, after the suspect in question, Mzee Maat Mzizi Mweusi Onyango, took to social media, to air out his frustration with a supposed campaign to “smear” his name, and to threaten Phillys Quartey, the Black women activist and mother, who quietly, but determined, warned other people about him.

Far from taking accountability for anything, his actions or lack of transparency in regards thereof, or clarifying any possible misunderstandings, he lashes out in a post about “enemies in the own camp.” Mind you, a Black woman was warning others of a convicted murderer with a history of violence against his partners. In his view, all of this can be explained by her ill will, caused by ‘internalized racism’ and ‘self-hatred.’ His accusations go as far as suggesting Quartey did the work of White Supremacy, which uses people like her as ‘spies’ and ‘mercenaries’ to undermine Black liberation.

But this is neither a smear campaign not the attempt to impair someone’s reputation, as Onyango tries to make it look like. Even more absurd, someone who is supposedly leading an abolitionist campaign against police violence is at the same time threatening another activist—a Black woman and mother–with legal consequences. Black or not, one who threatens people like this should be given no place in any movement of this kind, lacking an understanding of the police and the power he wields as a man. Or he understands this, and that is exactly why and how he tries to silence criticism.

In this, he is part of a marginal but still influential and dangerous manosphere-adjacent caricature of Black revolutionary movements, the often ridiculed ‘Hotep.’ This current of Black reaction is composed of elements of both the patriarchal and culturally nationalist views popularized by the Nation of Islam, especially in its Zombie form resurrected by Louis Farrakhan, and Maulana Karenga’s US Organization, the antagonistic male-led front against the Black Panther Party. There is an overwhelming amount of material to show how Black Studies courses, fought for by working class and Marxist Black activists, have been institutionalized under either liberal integrationist scholars like Henry Louis Gates or conservative scholars like Karenga. Karenga, not least to mention, was even himself convicted for the kidnapping and torture of two Black women, and there are ample testimonial accounts by John Henrik Clarke on how degrading Karenga treated Black women in general.

The path to rehabilitation leads through accountability, and someone who wants to carry a name that conveys wisdom and justice should act accordingly, otherwise they are just abusing Swahili and the principles of Maat. Leadership has to be democratic and accountable, which is impossible without transparency. We don’t believe in the law of punishment, or the reformative capacities of prisons. But we do believe that the community can only make an informed decision about its political representation and leadership, if the necessary information is disclosed. No one can simply decide if someone is safe to be around for women, our youth and our children.

This decision is ours to make collectively on the basis of facts.