Remembering Mutu: The Passing Of Bobby Hill (Will Gleeson)

By Thomas C. Mountain

11 May, 2016
Countercurrents.org

I first met Mutu aka Bobby Hill aka Will Gleeson in 1973 and through
him was first introduced to Pan Africanism and what became my lifes
work.

Mutu was renting a room literally next door to me in John and Lucy
Witecks home in Kapalama Heights, Honolulu and he was my first
experience up close and personal with a revolutionary black man living
in the United Snakes of AmeriKKKa.

Mutu must have seen something in this young white boy because he
recruited me to help on the African Liberation Day program a few
months later.

Watching Mutu put together the slide show in our living room the week
before ALD was my first introduction to Pan Africanism and it must
have sunk very deep roots in my subconciousness because 9 years later
I helped found the Hawaii Black History Committee.

In looking back it was Mutu who introduced me to black culture (he had
a wicked jazz collection though it was I who first played him a Bob
Marley track) who started my searching for the likes of Kwame Ture,
Ivan Van Sertima, Asa G. Hilliard and of course, the really
revolutionary Pan Africanist of them all, Issias Aferworki.

Mutu had started Harambe, the first black students union at the
University of Hawaii and had hooked up with the Ethnic Studies Program
at the University of Hawaii. At the time Maoism was still en vogue and
a number of organizations were competing for the Maoist party mantel.
The forerunners of the Communist Workers Party, The Communist Party
Marxist Leninist, and of course, the party Mutu and I joined up with,
the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.

As a part of the Party’s working class stategy I was sent off to the
sugar fields and factories on the North Shore and I think Mutu was
working with the Hotel Workers? We were in work teams under the
Party’s leadership and kept pretty good dicipline on respecting chain
of command so I didnt really work directly with Mutu until the Defend
Bob Avakian campaigh in 1979 when we both volunteered to go to
Washington DC to defend our chairman in the streets of our captital
city.

You have to remember now, Bob Avakian and a whole bunch of RCP cadre
got busted protesting Deng Xiao Pengs first ever visit by the senior
leadership of the Chinese Communist Party to the White House USA.

Jimmy Carter was President and Dengs visit was a sign that
“Capitalism” with a capital C had been restored in China with the
death of Chairman Mao and the arrest of his followers, the so called
“Gang of Four”.

Deng coming to power was a coup, literally. Hundreds of thousands of
Maoists, mainly cadre in the industrial factories and military, those
who had lead the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution starting in
1966, were arrested and summararily executed.

Dont forget now, Deng Xiao Peng had not once but twice been rousted
out of his Party Office and paraded through the streets on top of a
tank while the people literally threw shit on him, by these very same
Maoists. No mercy for the Maoist lot no sirree, not once Deng had the
army generals behind him.

So once the ailing Chairman Mao passed a very quick ruthless bloodbath
took place and the hard core of Maoist supporters met their martyrs
end with a bullet to the back of the head. The likes of Jimmy Carter
were completely delighted and voila, Deng was dining lavishly at the
White House three years later.

Well, just as the Shah of Iran was met with street battles and tear
gas in the streets of Chocolate City, WashDC in 1979, Dengs visit was
not going to go down without a fight as thousands of Maoists from
around the USA gathered to label him the capitalist traitor that he
was.

During the melee that followed well directed defense of the
demonstrators was inflicted on the mounted police and the bloodshed
was not all one sided for a change. In retaliation Babylon tried to
make an example of the RCP Chairman Bob Avakian and as a result,
thousands of Maoist supporters of the RCP across the country rallied
to “Defend Bob Avakian”.

Being a volunteer, and very active in the working class, I ended up in
a select group for special ideological training along with Mutu to
prepare us for our trip. Not long after this Mutu left for Washington
DC in the first wave of volunteers while I prepared to follow in the
second.

Then the charges against Bob Avakian were dropped and I never left
Hawaii. Our farewell to Mutu and our comrade volunteers was the last
time I would see or even hear about the brother.

For almost 40 years now I have often wondered where the first person
to introduce me to what became my life’s work had ended up. The RCP
is notoriously secretive and having left the cults fold I was allowed
no contact with or information about past comrades.

Then there was the announcement by the RCP that this past January,
Will Gleeson (aka Bobby Hill) had passed away and I finally had an
answer in my quest to Remember Mutu.

Now I really have some serious thinking to do because the brother
completely abandonded revolutionary Pan Africanism and instead
remained in the ranks of that ultimate eurocentric, Bob Avakian. From
then on all matters relating to African genius and the first
successful armed struggle of our generation, which took place in
Eritrea in Africa, were no longer allowed to be spoken of publically.

I wonder, did the RCP’s Carl Dix and Mutu (Will Gleeson? he even
adopted a white mans name?) ever secretly get together to talk about
what it was like working for the white man, Bob Avakian? I guess I
have a lot more wondering to do when I “Remember Mutu”.

Thomas C. Mountain is an independent journalist living and reporting
from Eritrea since 2006