By Shaka Barak, President, The Marcus Garvey Institute 06-21-14
The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey (b, August 17, 1887, d. June 10, 1940) founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA & ACL) and became its first President General and Administrator. He was such a great leader, teacher and guide that for one-hundred years, since its founding in 1914, there has been no man to lead the UNIA & ACL with the success that Marcus Garvey achieved.
They have neither had it in organizing UNIA & ACL’s with over 1400 divisions, establishing chains of Universal businesses, Universal African Legions, Universal Black Cross Nurses, Universal African Motor Corps, Juveniles Departments, or producing an inspiring original political thought or philosophy. In addition, the UNIA & ACL was such an expansive society that, there has been no successor to the organization of the UNIA & ACL. Not the Nation of Islam, the Moorish Science Temple of America, nor the Rastafarians have exceeded the achievement of the UNIA & ACL. Even the UNIA & ACL itself is only a fragmented shell of what it was and could be under a trained leadership of unadulterated Garveyism, with vision and modern management skills and ability to fulfill that vision in accordance with the UNIA & ACL aims & objects. Even the African Union is also, not there yet, until it deals more seriously with its own goals of 1. a united Africa, 2. the land that belongs to indigenous Africans at home and abroad, and 3. dual citizenship for Africans in the African Diaspora. In the Declaration of Rights of The Negro Peoples of the World, (declaration of self-determination) presented at the first international Convention of the African Peoples of the World in 1920, a 31 day convention, chaired by Marcus Garvey, Demand #7 reads in the Declaration, “We believe that any law or practice that tends to deprive any African of his land or the privileges of free citizenship within his country is unjust and immoral, and no native should respect any such law or practice." The land must be returned to our people, through land reform, without any apology to the present illegal occupiers or powers that be if the whole continent is put under sanctions for it. To meet those Universal African Nationalist principles set by the UNIA & ACL, the expropriation of the land of colonizers or the descendants of colonizers in Africa, without compensation is essential and justified. Marcus Garvey taught us that men who are in earnest are not afraid of consequences. Africa has some wonderful examples to upgrade and modernize the UNIA & ACL, with its high ambitions, not just in individuals who lost their lives and freedom to redeem Africa, but examples of organizations for the African Diaspora to model after. The Organization of African Unity (OAU), formed with 32 governments in 1963, set high standards that Marcus Garvey would have approved of. When founded, the OAU declared that it has, “… aims to promote the unity and solidarity of African States; co-ordinate and intensify their co-operation and efforts to achieve a better life for the peoples of Africa; defend their sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence; eradicate all forms of colonialism from Africa; promote international co-operation, giving due regard to the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and co-ordinate and harmonize members’ political, diplomatic, economic, educational, cultural, health, welfare, scientific, technical and defense policies.” The purpose of the OAU must be studied because it contained more of Marcus Garvey’s ideas than all the other groups talking about having a nation in a nation, put together. We are comfortable with the mission of the OAU and the AU because Universal African nationalism is ultimately about having a sovereignty in which we control, the land and whats on it or under it, the sea around it, and the air space above it.
Marcus Garvey wrote a year before he died, in his Blackman (magazine) February 1939. “We have greater hopes for Africa, an Africa that will be free as Europe is free, and Africa that will rise out of her conquered Dominions and Colonies into a free and independent State.” Marcus Garvey wanted to set up the UNIA & ACL headquarters, on the continent of Africa, which is the idea behind the UNIA & ACL Liberian, West Africa project, that saw 1 million acres of land given to the UNIA & ACL by the Liberian government in the 1920's. The government broke that promise and then took that land and gave it to the Firestone Rubber company of Akron, Ohio, for 99 years. However, Marcus Garvey's loyal student and true successor, President General Honorable James R. Steward, when Marcus Garvey died June 10, 1940, soon moved the UNIA & ACL headquarters to Liberia. Marcus Garvey would have been proud to see that relocation, under the his successor the Honorable Steward, because the UNIA & ACL headquarters out of Africa is like a fish out of water. The OAU, emerged, seeking to unite the continent of Africa but it also sought the involvement of the African Diaspora in strengthening African governments Sovereignty. Marcus Garvey called for us to work together, in Mother Africa, from every continent, North, South, East and West, under "brotherly cooperation."
According to Ezrah Aharone, author of Pawned Sovereignty, Sharpened Black Perspectives on Americanization, Africa, War, and Reparations (2003) he explains the meaning of sovereignty when he writes, “In the simplest terms, “sovereignty” is the independent power and authority of a government to control its people and the territory within its borders.” Robert Jackson author of Sovereignty, Evolution of an Idea, (2007) wrote, “Sovereignty is an idea of authority embodied in those bordered territorial organizations we refer to as ‘states’ or ‘nations’ and expressed in their various relations and activities, both domestic and foreign.”
After the launching of the African Union, the successor to the OAU, in Durban in July 9, 2002, that effort continued to involve the African Diaspora. Research shows, that, “The Constitutive Act of the AU declares that it shall "invite and encourage the full participation of the African Diaspora as an important part of our Continent, in the building of the African Union." Any student of history can see that Marcus
Garvey’s ideology was in the Pan African Congress meeting in 1945, where Kwame Nkrumah, Azekiwe, Amy Garvey, Jomo Kenyatta were present. It was in the OAU when it was founded, and it is in the African Union today. For the UNIA & ACL to ignore Africa, and to ignore the African Union is to ignore the teachings of Marcus Garvey, and to abandon the Objects and Aims of the UNIA & ACL. In the UNIA & ACL book of laws (1918) its reads, on page three, Section 3. “To assist in the development of independent Negro Nations and Communities.” In the Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World formed in 1920, demand number 13 states, “We believe in the freedom of Africa for the Negro Peoples of the world, and by the principle of Europe for the Europeans, and Asia for the Asiatics; we also demand Africa for the Africans, those at home and those abroad.” Demand # 14 in the Declaration reads, “ We believe in the inherent right of the Negro to possess himself of Africa, and that his possession of same shall not be regarded as an infringement on any claim or purchase by any race or nation.” The Economic Freedom Party of Azania, has taken a similar stance on the land question. Demand #7 of the Declaration reads. “We believe that any law or practice that tends to deprive any African of his land or the privileges of free citizenship within his country is unjust and immoral, and no native should respect any such law or practice.” Demand #1 reads, ”Be it known to all men that whereas all men are created equal and entitled to the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and because of this we, the duly elected representatives of the Negro peoples of the world, invoking the aid of just and Almighty God to declare all men women and children of our blood throughout the world free citizens, and do claim them as free citizens of Africa, the Motherland of All Negroes.”
As stated before, it has been 100 years since the founding of the UNIA & ACL, that has the ultimate objective of an African Racial Empire, and everything done outside of Africa is to be a stepping stone into Africa. The African Nation states have celebrated 51
years since of the founding of the Organization of African unity in 1963. We just commemorated the fact that it has been 64 years since the Honorable Marcus Garvey died on June 10. With this glorious past the Africans at home in Africa and in African Diaspora are not being asked to start from scratch but to help build what Marcus Garvey, the founders of the OAU, and the members of the AU like Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and the Republic of South Africa’s late Nelson Mandela gave their lives for, Pan Africanism. When the African Diaspora is allowed to help build the African Union, which is made up of 55 nation states, it helps to continue Marcus Garvey's idea to strengthen the sovereignty of independent Africa nations and communities. Our goal should be that one-day we will acquire dual citizenship in one or more of those African nations, so that we will be participating in African Sovereignty and building our racial hierarchy. Our children born, and raised on the continent will have the same rights as any citizen, and even the right to run for the highest office as President of a
nation state or President of a United Africa. This sovereignty can now be achieved without fighting against the military forces of colonizers. That is not to say, one day we UNIA & ACL members, wont have to give our fortunes, our sacred honor, and our blood in a fight to keep Africa free, but if we do, we will as Garveyites, gladly do it for our Motherland, as quickly "as a thirsty man would take a drink of water."
By Shaka Barak, President, The Marcus Garvey Institute 06-21-14
https://theblacklist.net/
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