sankofa - Blogs - TheBlackList Pub2024-03-29T05:41:00Zhttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/sankofaHow Ghanaian Artist Azizaa Is Challenging Christianity's Grip On Ghana (Video)https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/how-ghanaian-artist-azizaa-is-challenging-christianity-s-grip-o-12016-12-17T13:45:30.000Z2016-12-17T13:45:30.000ZNana Baakan Agyiriwahhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/NanaBaakanAgyiriwah<div><p><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}3828589878,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="320" src="{{#staticFileLink}}3828589878,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-left" alt="3828589878?profile=original" /></a>"How can anyone of African descent be worshiping the same tool used to uselessly murder their ancestors?"</span></p><p><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">By <a href="http://www.thefader.com/contributor_hub/benjamin-lebrave">BENJAMIN LEBRAVE</a></span></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align:center;"></p><div style="text-align:center;"><p><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bfeGpcmfMBA?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></span></p><p></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">According to a <a href="http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/14/file/14.pdf">2012 Gallup International survey</a> about religiosity and atheism, Ghana is one of the most religious countries in the world. At first glance, there is some evidence for this: when you land in Accra, you’ll notice churches everywhere you go. If you look even closer, you’ll see Mormon missionaries on their bikes throughout the country.</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">But are Ghanaians very religious or are they a very spiritual people invaded by highly organized, predatory religious structures? A quick Google search will give you countless links to Methodist, Apostolic, Pentecostal, Latter Day Saints (Mormons), and many other churches, many of them based in America or funded by Americans. If you do <a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=pastors+in+Ghana">a search for pastors in Ghana</a>, every single result on the first page is a link to list of the richest pastors. Where that information comes from is not as clear as what it expresses: Christianity is big business in Ghana. Going to church means many things to many people, but one fundamental aspect of the majority of Sunday masses in Ghana is people with very little income giving away a substantial amount of their salary to their pastors.</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">What's also disturbing about churches and missionaries spreading their gospel in Ghana is that Christianity fundamentally rejects any other religious customs. For Ghanaians, that means any spiritual practices which preceded colonizers—spiritual practices that are often misunderstood and grouped into the animist and polytheist boxes. Given the big role that religion plays in Ghana, this rejection creates a cycle of self-hatred that arises from the conflict of adoring a foreign deity that demands the rejection of elements of local culture and tradition.</span></p><p></p><p style="text-align:center;"><strong><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;color:#ff6600;" class="font-size-6">"They took away our spirituality and gave us religion; they banned us from gathering under a tree by the fireside and herded us into churches."—Wanlov</span></strong></p><p></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">Music artist <a href="https://www.facebook.com/azizaamusic">Azizaa</a> and rapper/video director <a href="https://www.facebook.com/kubolor">Wanlov the Kubolor</a>recently tackled this issue head-on with the video for Azizaa’s “Black Magic Woman” (watch it above). Growing up between Accra and New York, Azizaa is a rising voice in Ghana. She speaks and occasionally sings in her native Ewe tongue, and has managed to always stay in touch with her Ghanaian roots. Wanlov—who featured in the very <a href="http://www.thefader.com/2011/05/24/lungu-lungu-welcome-2-d-future">first Lungu Lungu column</a>—is one of the most vocal rappers on the continent, using humor and parody to bring up difficult issues, both in his solo work and as one half of Ghanaian rap duo <a href="https://www.facebook.com/foknbois">FOKN Bois</a>. In 2014, he co-directed the pidgin musical <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIfxM_1ri8o">Coz ov Moni 2</a> and has continued to play a role behind the camera ever since, as he did for Azizaa's video. The FADER caught up with the pair to ask them about “Black Magic Woman” and their take on religion in Ghana.</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">The opening scene of the "Black Magic Woman" video shows two young Christians pressuring a young woman in the name of Christianity. Does this reflect pressures you observe or personally feel?</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">AZIZAA: Yes, these pastors are something else. I've seen and heard worse—this is just a lighthearted version of a cold, harsh, bitter reality. I've seen trotro preachers aiming their messages at me to repent because of my nose and lip rings, and the blue/green/purple hair. This is not just it—I think Christianity should be banned and made illegal in Ghana, and all of Africa. How can anyone of African descent be worshiping the same tool used to uselessly murder their ancestors?</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">WANLOV: There are many videos from Ghana circulating of church members caught in the very act they preach against. This is because their religion shames a natural act and when nature calls very few can resist.</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">Is "black magic" an expression used in Ghana? If so, what does it refer to?</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">AZIZAA: The term black magic is loosely used in Ghana just about as much as juju. Ghanians are very religious and somehow still manage to be very superstitious. I have yet to understand that. Every death in Ghana has a superstitious tale behind it .</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">WANLOV: Not verbatim...we call it agbala or juju. It refers to any spiritual practice which is not Muslim or Christian.</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">What are the implications of Azizaa being portrayed as a "black magic woman" in the video? How would you expect this to be interpreted in Ghana?</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">AZIZAA: For me, being interpreted as the "bad" person is never a problem because I know who I am and I am very comfortable with myself. In the video we bring light to a huge problem in Ghana, or Africa as a whole, one that many refuse to acknowledge. Many religious leaders are abusing the people in different ways and taking advantage due to vulnerability and desperation of the people. It's also a mental problem. Hoarding—to hold on to as much money as possible, in order to live like colonial masters.</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">WANLOV: The older closed-minded generation will not approve, but the seeking youth and the open-minded will love her.</span></p><p></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span class="font-size-6"><strong><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;color:#ff6600;">"History has it that the colonial masters came with the Bible and the gun, gave the Bible to the Africans, as they pointed their guns at their heads. "—Azizaa</span></strong></span></p><p style="text-align:center;"></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">Is the strength of Christianity in Ghana left over from colonial times or is there more to it?</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">AZIZAA: History has it that the colonial masters came with the Bible and the gun, gave the Bible to the Africans, as they pointed their guns at their heads.</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">WANLOV: It is a perfect self-perpetuating system. They took away our spirituality and gave us religion; they banned us from gathering under a tree by the fireside and herded us into churches. Now we love going to church, because it is the only place we can have a weekend retreat from the mundane work week cycle also imposed on us by the colonials.</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">I have been told that most people in Ghana will not admit they practice or believe in juju, yet fear juju and resort to it when all else fails, in particular Christianity. What does that mean?</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">WANLOV: It means there is still hope for us. We have not completely been brainwashed. More and more pastors now have traditional deities they secretly consult. They do not fully believe in their religion, but are duping others to do so in order to have control over them to survive off them because the system is getting harder and harder to live in.</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">AZIZAA: In Ghana, most people believe in following the crowd just to stay alive, not to be scrutinized. There is stigma attached to vodou[voodoo], so Christianity is a very safe choice. But deep down, in their souls, hearts and minds, they can't fight or ignore the voice that tells them to go back to their roots, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankofa">sankofa</a>, it's the only thing that works. The Christian thing is just another way of slavery taking its toll and Ghanaians copying and pasting blindly. Ghanaians don't like blood, they prefer to poison instead of shooting or stabbing, so they would juju their enemy to keep themselves safe. Not many would know, it's not as loud as a gunshot, nor as messy as a knife wound.</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">What would be the outcome of a fight involving John Mahama, the current president of Ghana who has been highly criticized for his incompetence, TB Joshua, probably the richest pastor in Africa, and Mamiwata, the Goddess of water?</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">WANLOV: Mamiwata always wins coz <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQBC5URoF0s">wata no get enemy</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align:left;"></p><p><span style="font-family:'times new roman', times;" class="font-size-4">SOURCE: <a href="http://www.thefader.com/2015/09/02/azizaa-wanlov-interview">http://www.thefader.com/2015/09/02/azizaa-wanlov-interview</a></span></p></div></div>We're Facing A Psycho-Spiritual Crisishttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/we-re-facing-a-psycho-spiritual-crisis2016-05-16T15:00:00.000Z2016-05-16T15:00:00.000ZJunious Ricardo Stantonhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/JuniousRicardoStanton<div><p><b> </b></p><p></p><p><b> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}3828584693,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}3828584693,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="192" class="align-full" alt="3828584693?profile=original" /></a> ~ From The Ramparts,</b> by Junious Ricardo Stanton ~ </p><p> <i>"Western consumer culture is creating a psycho-spiritual crisis that leaves us disoriented and bereft of purpose. How can we treat our sick culture and make ourselves well?"</i> John F. Shumaker The Demoralized Mind <a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44653.htm">http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44653.htm</a> </p><p> Many Westerners are coming to the inescapable conclusion their culture is creating a psychological malaise that is metastasizing throughout the society, stifling empathy, enthusiasm and any sense of meaning, purpose or real fulfillment in our lives. We find ourselves like laboratory mice or hamsters on the proverbial treadmill going nowhere fast, depleting our energy and finances with nothing to show for it but tons of planned obsolescence stuff and suffocating debt. </p><p> There was even a mindset propagated in the 80's and 90's that said the measure of one's worth was the material things one possessed at life's end. They said "greed is good" which fueled consumerism, materialism and a dog eat dog winner take all mindset. The angst many feel today is a direct result of falling for the okey-doke of the "American Dream" which for far too many is really a nightmare.</p><p> If the measure of your being, your self-worth and success are based upon the amount of gizmos and gadgets you have, what happens if you lose them, they become obsolete or you can no longer afford them? Many Americans were devastated by the 2007-08 economic downturn. Millions still have not rebounded from the economic implosion brought on by the reckless and fraudulent activities of the big banks, lending institutions, insurance companies in collusion with government. Many folks owe more on their homes than they are presently worth, while millions have lost their homes and fancy cars to foreclosure and repossession.</p><p> Wealth inequality, homelessness, depression and despair hang over this country like a thick fog and many are succumbing to alcohol and opiate addiction as a way of numbing their misery and frustration. Opiate prescriptions are at an all time high in America and the suicide rate is the highest it has been in thirty years!</p><p> Many thinkers, philosophers and reformers have warned that America is heading in the wrong direction, is lost and about to plummet into an abyss of maladaptive, self-destructive responses to culturally and politically induced socio-economic circumstances. Social engineering is real, social programming and mind control are real. The US government has been working on them for decades. Do some research on the CIA's MK ULTRA, Operation MONARCH and other mind control programs and then look into what is going on at the Pentagon at its Department of Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It will blow your mind. It's science fiction mad scientist type stuff on the real! Then ask yourself what is the impact of six conglomerates controlling almost everything we see on TV, the movies, streaming, books, magazines and newspapers? Is this representative of free and open markets or is it more in line with monopoly consolidation?</p><p> But this is nothing new. American history is fraught with moral contradictions, blatant discrepancies between their professed creed and their actual deeds. How do you talk about "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness" while aggressively engaged in policies and programs of genocide, extermination, slavery and dehumanization?</p><p> These facts about America are undeniable and yet the ruling class has never, ever really attempted to remedy or reconcile those policies. In fact they are still negatively impacting the lives of people of color, Native Americans, African-Americans and others today! The only difference between now and back in the day is, the Black Codes, Slave Codes, and government sanctioned segregation are no longer on the books. However the consciousness and practices that created them still exist and remain in effect because the ruling class who created and uphold the cultures' institutions and systems have not purged themselves of that mindset and values.</p><p> Africans in America have long attempted to change the situation by urging America's leaders to repent, galvanize and organize to alter the trajectory of this nation's immoral and inhumane policies. The continuing consequences of the sins of the "founding fathers" are still being visited upon successive generations as the ruling class attempts to keep their criminogenic culture (a system, situation or place causing or likely to cause criminal behavior) in tact and expand its reach on a global level..</p><p> The European settlers arriving in this hemisphere came not as scientific explorers, seekers of freedom or with a plan to establish a new way of governing but as pillaging soldiers of fortune looking for bounty and booty to expropriate. Their history of genocide, slavery and crimes against humanity have never been reconciled, avenged or punished. A cloud of depravity hangs over America blotting out the sunlight of morality, justice and true civilization. Until this cloud dissipates America will never free itself of its consciousness of exploitation, plunder, greed and war.</p><p> David Walker the son of a slave father and "free" mother was born in 1785 in North Carolina. Walker's father died before he was born. Walker was a passionate foe of the institution of slavery. He eventually fled North Carolina and moved to Boston. He taught himself to read and write. In his fiery <b>Appeal To The Slaves of the United States of America</b> written and published in 1829, Walker shocked the world when he denounced the cruelty and barbarity of the whites in his treatise. Writing about their history and character he said, , "But we will leave the whites or Europeans as heathens and take a view of them as christians in which capacity we see them as cruel, if not more so then ever. In fact take them as a body, they are ten times more cruel, avaricious and unmerciful than ever they were; for while they were heathens they were bad enough it is true, but it is positively a fact that there were not so audacious as to go and take vessel loads of men, women and children and in cold blood and through devilishness, throw them into the sea, and murder them in all kinds of ways. While they were heathens, they were too ignorant for such barbarity. But being christians, enlightened and sensible, they are completely prepared for such hellish cruelties. Now suppose God were to give them more sense, what would they do? If it were not possible would they not dethrone Jehovah and seat themselves upon his throne?" David Walker's Appeal Article 1.</p><p> Walker's 1829 Appeal like the 1804 Haitian Revolution and Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831 sent tidal waves of fear and dread amongst the slave holding South because Walker encouraged Blacks to use violence to secure their freedom. When Walker's book was smuggled to the South it caused quite a stir. So much so, a bounty of one thousand dollars was placed on Walker's head if killed and ten thousand if captured alive. Walker died shortly after he published his work but it made a powerful impact on the whole country.</p><p> Would that we had men and women like David Walker and Ida B Wells Barnett who spoke truth to power and challenged the evil and wickedness of their day now. Would we be as comatose and apathetic as we are today if we had champions like them fighting on our behalf? What will it take to rouse us from our stupor and stiffen our backs to challenge our oppression?</p><p> The ruling class has more weapons at its disposal today than ever before. In 1830 they primarily used fear, the Christian religion with its narration about the bogus curse of Ham, a shame and guilt based theology, violence and torture to get the masses to submit to Catholic and Protestant dogma and control. Today they have a pervasive technological network that manufactures a reality that dumbs us down, disorients and discombobulates us, they poison us with GMO Frankenfoods, pump us with pharmaceutical and illicit drugs to numb our minds and push us towards stultifying addiction.</p><p> All this is designed to reduce resistance to their nefarious global agenda. As a result America faces a psycho-spiritual crisis of enormous proportions. The push back against the political candidates sponsored by the ruling class is not based upon moral indignation or a desire to transcend and transform ourselves and society. The current so called "political revolution" is not based upon spiritual enlightenment. Rather, it is based upon frustration because the materialistic consumer gravy train is no longer running and white folks feel betrayed. They are angry and anxious.</p><p> Black people are rudderless and lost. We have no real strategies to save ourselves other than foolishly coupling our hopes to a Democratic Party that has sold us out time and again. Neither political party has our best interests at heart we have to realize this and act accordingly.</p><p> What can we do to improve ourselves and our situation? We can come together, unify and develop a survival infrastructure, an information sharing infrastructure and action plans. We have to build values producing institutions: create and support our own schools, develop our own pedagogical theories and practices, expand economic networks and capital formation groups. Most importantly we must formulate a cosmology to substitute for the decadent Western values of selfish alienation, materialism, war and predation.</p><p> We can do this. We already have the model, traditional African values and cosmology. <a href="http://www.emeka.at/african_cultural_vaules.pdf%C2%A0">http://www.emeka.at/african_cultural_vaules.pdf </a>; We already have the concept, model and action of <b>Sankofa</b>, going back to retrieve that which is good, bringing it forward and adapting it to present realities. We were the first humans to do all this. We have done it many times in the past in our history, we can begin now to create a brighter future for ourselves and our children.</p><p> </p><p> -30-</p></div>Make Repatriation a Reality - Help Build the Sankofa Community Center in Ghanahttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/make-repatriation-a-reality-help-build-the-sankofa-community-cent2014-06-02T14:29:07.000Z2014-06-02T14:29:07.000ZTheBlackList-Publisherhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/TheBlackListPublisher<div><p><span style="color:#ff0000;"><strong>We are working to build an three part community facility to help the Global African family. Please check the link and support our effort to raise the funds needs towards making this repatriation and education effort a reality. Any amount, no matter how big or small Counts! To support this effort, <span style="color:#000000;">go to:</span> <span style="color:#0000ff;"><a href="http://www.gofundme.com/sankofa-center?utm_source=emailcampaign326&utm_medium=phpList&utm_content=HTMLemail&utm_campaign=Sankofa+Community+Center" target="_blank"><span style="color:#0000ff;">http://www.gofundme.com/sankofa-center</span></a></span></strong></span></p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}3828564795,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}3828564795,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="160" class="align-full" alt="3828564795?profile=original" /></a>Created by Kala Mujibha on April 4, 2014<br /><a href="http://www.abibitumikasa.com/forums/showthread.php/105291-Please-Support-the-Sankofa-Community-Center-Library-Housing-Facility%21?highlight=sankofa%20community%20center&utm_source=emailcampaign326&utm_medium=phpList&utm_content=HTMLemail&utm_campaign=Sankofa+Community+Center" target="_blank">http://www.abibitumikasa.com/forums/showthread.php/105291-Please-Support-the-Sankofa-Community-Center-Library-Housing-Facility%21?highlight=sankofa+community+center</a><br /><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}3828564741,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}3828564741,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="730" class="align-full" alt="3828564741?profile=original" /></a><strong>Sankofa Community Center</strong> is a community building that will be created to support various events and activities for the education and upliftment of residents and visitors of Ghana, West Africa. This would be a free facility that would allow the community to have a safe and clean environment to interact. It will include computers and other technology that is not readily accessible to many Ghanaians. It will provide training and education programs for economically disadvantaged youth and adults. It will facilitate lectures and discussions on health and cultural education, historical exhibits, as well as provide free learning courses and materials.<br /><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}3828564806,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}3828564806,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="592" class="align-full" alt="3828564806?profile=original" /></a><strong>The Sankofa Housing Facility</strong> will provide a safe, free place for Africans who need it. Those who plan to repatriate to Ghana but cannot find immediate housing will be able to stay within this facility. We also plan to provide temporary housing support to Ghanaian adults and children who may need it. It also will provide housing to staff members who help to keep the facility running (building maintenance, security personnel, etc).<br /><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}3828564690,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}3828564690,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="468" class="align-full" alt="3828564690?profile=original" /></a><strong>The Sankofa Library</strong> is dedicated to preserving the research of scholars from Africa and the African diaspora on Africa's rich history and culture. Globally people of African descent have been kept from knowing the countless contributions that African people and civilizations have made to the world. It is our intent to build an extensive library in a central location that is easily accessible, especially to those of African descent who do not have the financial means to access such materials. Knowledge and information about our history builds pride, self-esteem. It opens the mind to new possibilities and encourages literacy. It is our expectation that this one of a kind facility will be able to provide such enriching experiences for Ghanaians and non-Ghanaians alike. <br /><br /><strong>Why a community center, housing facility, and library:</strong><br />All over the world there are disparaging amounts of people of African descent who exist at an economic and educational disadvantage. Comparatively, we are unaware of the historical contributions our ancestors have made in various areas such as science, technology, medicine and health, mathematics, sports, music, dance, etc. Africans living in Africa know very little about the history of the land they live on and the ancient people who once lived there. Lack of education and/or mis-education due to racism and colonization has often led to the poor self-esteem and belief in the inability to succeed. The alarming disparity continues to grow. It is our understanding that with education we can begin to combat many of the ongoing economic, social, and political issues plaguing African people world-wide. It is imperative that we preserve and make available the research and information of our scholars, as well as provide a space where we can create the programs and initiatives needed to close the gap.<br /><br /><strong>Services that the community center will provide:</strong><br />"¢ Free Housing for repatriates who are interested in moving to Ghana permanently and need a place to stay temporarily until they can obtain their own housing. While there is a policy that does not allow us to house Ghanaian children we can provide a safe haven for them to play and learn.<br />"¢ Classes and training for children and adults in all subjects and sports; including: Math, General Sciences, African languages, health sciences, emergency preparedness, computer science, entrepreneurial skills, leadership skills, African history, Rites of Passages, Homeopathic sciences (herbal remedies, iridology, massage, reiki, yoga, aroma therapy), soccer, swimming, African dance, drumming, wood carving, kente weaving, the list goes on.<br />"¢ Resources and learning materials via our library of books, videos, etc. <br />"¢ Lectures, conferences, and events to educate, support, and empower the community. <br /><br /><strong>The meaning of Sankofa:</strong><br />An Adinkra symbol from the Akan culture of Ghana, which means "go back and fetch." It's never too late to go back and fetch the knowledge of who our ancestors were and the contributions they've made. Even more so, it's not too late to learn from our past in order to create a better future. <br /><br /><strong>How your financial contribution helps</strong>:<br />We plan to build a multi-story, eco-friendly,sustainable facility on a five acres of land, in a central location, preferably neighboring areas of Legon, in Accra Ghana. The facility will house an extensive library, auditorium, conference rooms, computer laboratories, youth facility and play area, and a housing facility. Your contribution will pay for purchasing the land, registering the organization in Ghana, building the facility, obtaining the materials (books, computers, other media and learning equipment, tables, chairs, etc.), and maintenance of the facility once it is complete.<br /><br /><strong>About the facilitators of the Organization:</strong><br />We are a group of families who work as professionals in various fields, mainly within academia as professors and advisors. We organize various activities for the community and have found it difficult to maintain our invaluable classes, events and services without a long term space. <br /><br />Kala Mujibha is a freelance writer, biographer, photo-journalist, homeschooling mother of two. Raised in New York, she currently resides with her husband and children in Accra, Ghana. She's an organizer who is intensely focused on helping to develop a liberated, sovereign and self-sufficient Africa.<a href="{{#staticFileLink}}3828564862,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}3828564862,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="640" class="align-full" alt="3828564862?profile=original" /></a><strong>Make a donation now at <a href="http://www.gofundme.com/sankofa-center?utm_source=emailcampaign326&utm_medium=phpList&utm_content=HTMLemail&utm_campaign=Sankofa+Community+Center" target="_blank">http://www.gofundme.com/sankofa-center</a></strong></p>
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<p></p></div>An Open Letter to BLACK MENhttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/open-letter-to-black-men2011-12-05T16:00:00.000Z2011-12-05T16:00:00.000ZTheBlackListhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/TheBlackList<div><div class="im"><div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;">by </font><a href="http://www.facebook.com/CoachBilal" target="_blank"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" color="#6D6F71">Bilal Sankofa</font></a><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"> </font><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"> </font></div>
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<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3">In the Divine Names of TRUTH, ORDER & in HARMONY with ALL of our RIGHTEOUS Elders & Ancestors, I greet you in PEACE. Brothers, we are currently existing in an artificial reality where it is Common practice & Acceptable to Disrespect Black Women, Black Family Life, Culture & Community; in public and private. As Black <b>MEN</b>; not the misguided black MALE, grown up juvenile delinquent mentality & behavior; But Righteous and Responsible Black <b>MEN</b>. It is our <b>DUTY, RESPONSIBILITY & RIGHT</b> to Speak<b> ORDER</b> back into this disorderly paradigm of Blatant & Open disregard for the <b>SAFETY</b> and <b>SANCTITY</b> of Our Mothers, Sisters, Aunts, Nieces, Cousins, neighbors & friends. </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3">As <b>Ma’at </b><b>represents the <i>Divine Order, Truth, Righteousness, Harmony & Justice</i></b> in our personal, familial, communal & social lives.</font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><font size="3"><b><i>ISFET</i></b> is its opposite. <b><i>Isfet represents the disorder, lies & destructive imbalances currently on display & running rampant within our personal, familial, communal & social lives.</i></b> WHO, if not <b>BLACK MEN</b> is responsible for re-establishing orderly conduct & behavior back into our black familial, communal & social lives. MEN are to be the Maintainers & Protectors of our Women, Children, Family & environments, so that they are <b>FREE</b> to grow & develop into the divine beings we are suppose to be, <b>FREE</b> of disorder & chaos, <b>FREE</b> of those that seek to prey on & destroy every avenue which will re-awaken our divine faculties. It is the MAN Lion that Patrols the perimeter warning and warring against any would be intruder seeking to invade it’s family. However, as <b>BLACK MEN</b>, I ask you where are our Black Lions Protectors, where are our Black Lion Patrollers, who patrol & control our parameters, warning & warring against our Black family, community & social Invaders Spreading <b><i>ISFET, creating Chaos, Disorder, Lies, Deceit, and FEAR?</i></b> </font></font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3">If you are one of those <b>BLACK LIONS</b>, and I pray that you are, then it is <b>TIME, RIGHT NOW</b>, To mark your territory. Go up to the “highest mountain” that you have access to, Blow your <b>AKOBEN (War Horn)</b>, Declare in a loud voice of WORD & ACTION that this <b>AKOBEN (Battle Cry)</b> that im blowing is in Ma’at, is in divine TRUTH that you aim to, by EVERY MEANS NECESSARY, bring TRUTH, ORDER & RIGHTEOUSNESS back to the Land, and Balance, Safety and Security back to your Earth (Woman). </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3">Whenever you witness a misguided MALE, irregardless of his professed knowledge base, stature & title Disrespecting, seeking to Intimidate & strike FEAR into the Divine hearts of our WOMEN & CHILDREN; you are to with absolute clarity let that brother KNOW that he & his words & actions are OUT OF ORDER, and that from that moment on he is to state his PEACE or Declare WAR. If he refuses, and declares War, that you stand on the side of RIGHTEOUSNESS, and it is your DUTY, RESPONSIBILITY & RIGHT to Protect her with your LIFE. </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3">Whenever you witness a misguided <b>MALE</b>, speaking & representing Isfet in the presence of our women & children; Modeling Chaos & Disorder, It is your <b>DUTY, RESPONSIBILITY & RIGHT</b> to respectfully, intervene & Model what a <b>RIGHTEOUS BLACK MAN</b> really looks like up close & in Person.<b>FEAR </b>has no place in the prepared hearts of Warriors. Our <b>MALE</b> children are modeling themselves after Thugs, Goons, Gangstas & Beasts, kwk…. </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3">You can hear this <b><i>Isfetian</i></b> statement being declared in their daily conversational patterns. When one is working hard in any field of sport or play you will here 8-10of our youth say<b><i> “Oh,he/she’s a Beast”, “I’m on my thug sh%# today”, “I’m a Goon”</i></b>,kwk.. </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3">You <b>NEVER</b> hear our children & Youth say when Hard Work is being acted upon in manner say, <b><i>“#Ase, he/she’s a WARRIOR”, “Oh. He/she on their WARRIOR program today”, “Oh, he/she’s WARRIORing”, “Oh,Im a WARRIOR”</i></b>..You here our <b>FEMALES</b> saying <b><i>isfetian</i></b> statements like, <b><i>”I need a little Thug in my life”, “oh, girl, he was a beast in the XYZ”…</i></b> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><font size="3"><b>WHY</b>, is the question. I conclude because the <b>BLACK LION WARRIORS</b> are & have not marked their territories & demanded Within our families, communities & societies; <b>MA’AT or NOTHING</b>. As a result, the misguided CUBS are acting like laughing little HYENAS and have no idea what a <b>WARRIOR</b> looks & acts like up close & person. <i>They are laughing at very idea of <b>TRUTH, ORDER, HARMONY, RIGHTEOUSNESS & Black Male Responsibility</b>.</i> </font></font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3">Every time a misguided black male <b>DISRESPECTS</b> a black woman, he is laughing at all our righteous elders & ancestors, and all their struggles to establish Ma’at in the world.Everytime a misguided black male can <b>OPENLY</b> represent <i><b>ISFET </b>(chaos, lies, disorder, deceit, hustle, manipulation kwk..),</i> and not one <b>BLACK MAN </b>jumps out the bushes, and, in the spectacular black vernacular of street linguistics, <b>“CHECKS HIS ASS!”</b>, we are <b>condoning ISFET over Ma’at</b>, we are teaching, by our <b>SILENT CONSENT</b> that being a “<i>Thug, Gangsta, Goon & BEAST” is the <b>ORDER OF THE LAND</b>,</i> and that it is OK to spread <b>FEAR</b> in our Woman, Children, Communities & Societies. </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3">I Say <b>“HELL TO THE NAH”</b> – <i><b>Tehuti</b> is the divine <b>TIME KEEPER</b></i> & that it is<b> TIME</b> to take shit to the <i><b>5th dimension </b>of <b>SELF REALIZATION </b></i>and get <b>*Herukhuti: The God of WAR*</b> on they asses. The <b>TIME is NOW; RIGHT NOW</b>,for Our <b>BLACK LION WARRIORS</b> to <b><i>SPEAK with ACTIONATED WORDS, RE-MARK YOUR TERRITORIES, SECURE YOUR PERIMITERS, PROTECT YOUR WOMEN & CHILDREN, and RE-ESTABLISH MA’AT BACK INTO THE LAND.</i></b> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3">I <b>WILL</b> that you take this Open Letter in the spirit that it is given, In Ma’at; and re-assume your divine ROLE as Maintainers & Protectors of our Women, Children, Family, Communities & Societies. That you from this moment forward MODEL what The BLACK LION WARRIOR looks like up close & person. Our women & children NEED it NOW. <b>GO TO WORK;</b> With Truth, Order & Righteousness. </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3">Your brother in the struggle for the Re-Awakening of The Divine Black Mind & Re-establishment of the Righteous Black Family & Life.</font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="3">Coach Bilal Sankofa</font></div>
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<div class="im"><font size="2"><font style="background-color:#800000;"><i><span style="font-family:'sans-serif';font-size:14pt;"><font size="2"><font style="background-color:#800000;">___________________ _</font><font style="background-color:#000000;">____ __________________</font><font style="background-color:#033d21;">_ ________ ___________</font></font></span></i></font></font></div>
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<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0pt;"><font size="4">As the STEP Rites of Passage & Manhood Development Organization we are in full agreement and remain steadfast in raising the next generation of protectors, builders and leaders...."The young Lions" that our communities and people need so very desparately.</font><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><font size="5"><b><i><span><font face="Calibri"><font size="6"> </font></font></span></i></b></font></font></p>
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<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 10pt;"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><font size="5"><span style="font-family:'sans-serif';font-size:10pt;"><img style="min-height:298px;width:394px;height:339px;" alt="" src="http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/383849_10150507803341908_110722776907_10880938_1725564943_n.jpg" height="635" width="960" /></span></font></font></p>
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<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0pt;"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><font size="5"><span style="font-family:'sans-serif';font-size:10pt;"><strong><font size="5">Young Lion Cubs in the making!</font></strong></span></font></font></p>
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<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 10pt;"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><font size="5"><span style="font-family:'sans-serif';font-size:10pt;"><img style="min-height:345px;width:421px;height:321px;" alt="" src="http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/384031_10150507802006908_110722776907_10880925_1931043205_n.jpg" height="635" width="960" /></span></font></font></p>
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<div class="im"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" size="5"><span style="font-family:'sans-serif';font-size:10pt;"><font size="5">Come show your</font> <font size="5">love and support!</font></span></font></div>
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<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 10pt;"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><font size="5"><b><i><span style="font-family:'sans-serif';font-size:14pt;"><font face="lucida console, sans-serif" size="6"><img style="min-height:322px;width:386px;height:300px;" alt="" src="http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/374258_10150507804421908_110722776907_10880948_987558268_n.jpg" height="635" width="960" /></font></span></i></b></font></font> </p>
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<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 10pt;"><font face="comic sans ms,sans-serif" size="6"><em>at Our.....</em></font></p>
<div class="im"><p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 10pt;"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><b><i><span style="font-family:Papyrus;color:#500000;font-size:48pt;">Kwanzaa 2011 </span></i></b></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 10pt;"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><b><i><span style="font-family:Papyrus;color:#500000;font-size:8pt;"> <img style="min-height:390px;width:441px;height:287px;" alt="" src="http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/379603_10150459128581908_110722776907_10704862_233234069_n.jpg" height="635" width="960" /> </span></i></b></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 10pt;"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><b><i><span style="font-family:Papyrus;color:#500000;font-size:20pt;">Acknowledgement ceremony Celebration and Dinner</span></i></b></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 10pt;"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><b><i><span style="font-family:Papyrus;font-size:8pt;">___________________________________________________________________________</span></i></b></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:10pt 0in 0pt;"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><font size="5"><b><span style="font-family:serif;color:#17365d;font-size:20pt;">WHEN: Sat. Dec. 17th</span></b></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:10pt 0in 0pt;"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><font size="5"><b><span style="font-family:serif;color:#17365d;font-size:20pt;">WHERE: The Newark YMWCA</span></b></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0pt;"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><font face="Calibri"><span style="font-size:14pt;"> </span><b><span style="color:#0f243e;font-size:18pt;">600 Broad St. Newark New Jersey</span></b></font></font></font></p>
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<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0pt;"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><b><span style="font-family:'sans-serif';color:#17365d;font-size:22pt;">Time: 5-8pm</span></b></font></font></p>
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<div><font face="Calibri"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><b><i><span style="color:#5c2c04;font-size:16pt;">Our Kwanzaa acknowledgement ceremony is scheduled at the end of each second session in December for the continued cultural involvement and awareness of our participating youth. Our Rights of Passage Accomplishments Ceremony & Dinner is also held at that time where all participants, staff and their families attend to acknowledge the accomplishments of our youth during that session.</span></i></b></font></font></font></div>
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<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0pt;"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><font face="Calibri"><b><i><span style="color:#5c2c04;font-size:16pt;">Join us as we share and embrace Afrikan Culture and the spirit of commUNITY</span></i></b><b><i><span style="color:#984806;font-size:16pt;">.</span></i></b></font></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0pt;"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><b><span style="color:#17365d;font-size:8pt;"><font face="Calibri"> </font></span></b> <span style="font-family:'sans-serif';font-size:10pt;">____________________________________________________________________________</span></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0pt;"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><b><span style="color:#17365d;font-size:8pt;"><font face="Calibri"> </font></span></b></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Calibri"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><b><span style="font-size:13.5pt;">For more info, to volunteer or vendor space contact:</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;"> </span></font></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 10pt;"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><b><span style="font-size:8pt;"><font face="Calibri"> </font></span></b></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 10pt;"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><b><span style="font-size:20pt;"><font face="Calibri">STEP Inc.</font></span></b></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0pt;"><font size="5"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;"><b><span style="font-size:14pt;"><font face="Calibri"><a target="_blank">(973) 842-8212</a> </font></span></b></font></font></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0pt;"><b><span style="font-size:14pt;"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" face="Calibri" size="5">E-mail:</font> <a href="http://us.mc1612.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=step_incnj@yahoo.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:#0000FF;"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" face="Calibri" size="5">step_incnj@yahoo.com</font></span></a></span></b></p>
<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0pt;"><b><span style="font-size:14pt;"><a href="http://www.steptothefuture.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color:#0000FF;"><font style="background-color:#ffffff;" face="Calibri" size="5">www.steptothefuture.org</font></span></a></span></b></p>
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<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'sans-serif';font-size:10pt;"><strong><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">ADMISSION FREE TO THE PUBLIC</font></strong></span></p>
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<p style="line-height:normal;margin:0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family:'sans-serif';font-size:10pt;"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>DINNER DONATION $5 </strong></font></span></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-1">submitted by commm drumm <<a href="mailto:comm.drum@gmail.com" target="_blank">comm.drum@gmail.com</a>></span></p>
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<p></p></div>The value of Culture.https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/the-value-of-culture2011-04-13T13:31:21.000Z2011-04-13T13:31:21.000ZTheBlackListhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/TheBlackList<div><strong><span class="font-size-3">Dr. Marimba Ani</span></strong> ~<br /><table border="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td valign="top"><p><a href="http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0PDoYAmK6VN.lQADEGJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTBqamdoM3Q5BHBvcwMxMgRzZWMDc3IEdnRpZAM-/SIG=1ifij11h4/EXP=1302698918/**http%3A//images.search.yahoo.com/images/view%3Fback=http%253A%252F%252Fimages.search.yahoo.com%252Fsearch%252Fimages%253F_adv_prop%253Dimage%2526va%253DAfrican%252BSymbols%2526fr%253Dush-mail%26w=710%26h=711%26imgurl=ny-image1.etsy.com%252Fil_fullxfull.18157357.jpg%26rurl=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.etsy.com%252Flisting%252F9137251%252Fgye-nyame-omnipresence-of-a-supreme%26size=53KB%26name=...%2BBeing%2B--%2BAfr...%26p=African%2BSymbols%26oid=0a674d3a51f1455b932d39bfde87fe88%26fr2=%26no=12%26tt=174000%26sigr=1273p4f6m%26sigi=11c563vr6%26sigb=12r6qm82h%26.crumb=C.73wRvdq34" target="_blank"></a></p>
<p>All people, all over the world, throughout history have shared in common the fact that they belong to a culture of origin. That is a universal reality. Another equally important universal reality is that there are many, many different cultures in the world and each of them is unique.</p>
<p>The uniqueness of a culture is what gives specialness to its members. The members of a culture are bonded together by their shared culture, which gives them a sense of collective identity.</p>
<p>"We are an Afrikan people," simply reveals that there are values, traditions and a heritage that we share because we have a common origin. The cultural process is naturally ongoing, which allows people to continuously affirm their connectedness through being linked to their origins.</p>
<p>However, the continuity of our cultural identity has been interrupted cruelly and unnaturally by the experience of slavery. We as a people are still suffering from this crime because we have not been allowed to find our way back to the sense of cultural identity and continuity which would transform us into a unified and whole people. We have not been able to function in the world with a collective consciousness that naturally imparts a strong sense of cultural roots.</p>
<p>The term "<a href="http://www.africawithin.com/maafa/slavery.htm" target="_blank">Maafa</a>" (from the book, "Let The Circle Be Unbroken) is a Kiswahili word for "disaster" that we are now using to reclaim our right to tell our own story. Maafa refers to the enslavement of our people and to the sustained attempt to dehumanize us. Because the Maafa has disconnected us from our cultural origins, we have remained vulnerable in a social order that does not reflect our cultural identity.</p>
<p>We are people of African ancestry living in denial of who we are. We have lost our strength as a people. We are losing our children to systems which miseducate them. Our families are disintegrating before our eyes. Our numbers are growing in the statistics of drug addiction and incarceration.</p>
<p>Responsible national Black organizations are seeking remedies to these problems, but we are not speaking with one voice. We need to work together as a family who supports its members and who is responsible for their welfare. We must use the most valuable asset that we have: That is the spirit of our people. It is that spirit that connects us to our Afrikan roots.</p>
<p>Slowly, we are awakening to the need to claim our cultural legacy. The term "<a href="http://www.africawithin.com/studies/sankofa.htm" target="_blank">Sankofa</a>" from <a href="http://www.africawithin.com/akan/akan_cosmology.htm" target="_blank">Akan</a> tradition in <a href="http://www.africawithin.com/tour/ghana/ghana.htm" target="_blank">Ghana</a>, West Africa tells us to return to the Source so that we can go forward with strength and clarity. Culture is a powerful tool for inspiring human beings and bringing them together in a concerted "family" action.</p>
<p>Our cultural roots are the most ancient in the world. The spiritual concepts of our Ancestors gave birth to religious thought. African people believe in the oneness of the African family through sacred time, which unites the past, the present and the future.</p>
<p>Our Ancestors live with us. They created the first civilizations thousands of years ago and they suffered the pain of the Maafa. And yet, they were able to endure the most disastrous and dehumanizing circumstances ever perpetrated against a group of people, only because of the power of the African spirit. They did not have the freedom to affirm their cultural heritage. We now have that choice. In the African view of life it is our responsibility to honor their name.</p>
<p>This is perhaps our moment of truth. We must come together as a family. We must do all that we can do to uplift our people. Otherwise, we are still denying who we are and bringing dishonor to our "family name;" to our Ancestors. The answer to our social dilemma is the resocialization of our people into the cultural value-system that affirms our spiritual being. Our Ancestors are calling us "home", back to our cultural selves. We must begin the process of Sankofa.</p>
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<p>SUBMITTED BY:</p>
<p><b class="gmail_sendername"><a href="http://yahoo.com" target="_blank">Step Inc</a></b></p>
<p> </p>
<p><b class="gmail_sendername"><br /></b></p>
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</tr></tbody></table></div>Keeping Our Eyes on the Ball (2)https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/keeping-our-eyes-on-the-ball-22010-10-29T00:30:00.000Z2010-10-29T00:30:00.000ZKWASI Akyeamponghttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/KWASIAkyeampong<div><div><p align="left"></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman,Times New Roman"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman,Times New Roman"><strong><font size="4"><em>by Kwesi Kwaa Prah</em></font></strong></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman,Times New Roman"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman,Times New Roman"><strong><font size="4"><em>Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS)</em></font></strong></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Times New Roman,Times New Roman"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman,Times New Roman"><strong><font size="4"><em>Cape Town<br /></em></font></strong></font></font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Dear Gen. Williams<strong>*</strong>, <br /></font></font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">The flurry of emails, I have so far seen, have maintained the pace and heat of the discussions that were initiated and aired during our Johannesburg meeting of early January this year. This is enormously encouraging, because the free exchange of views is crucial to the identification and elaboration of a platform for ideas which could eventually feed into the 8</font></font><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond">th</font></font> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Congress. As originators of the request to me and Prof. Nabudere to create machinery for the organization of an 8</font></font><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond">th</font></font> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">PAC, you and Mr. Bankie deserve to be prioritized for address in this post-meeting response from me. What I have written here are my personal views. Writing this also forces me to articulate thoughts which have meandered and coursed through my mind in the wake of the meeting. I am doing a sort of extended after-thought in full knowledge of the pitfalls and the sort of challenges one faces in philosophical terms.</font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Whatever may be the case or the outcome of this present exercise, it is certainly not meant to be merely a playback or flashback. It is more a summary cogitation on the consequences and mplications of the January meeting; brain-storming we called it. I have taken a critical look at the project and asked myself if the approach of a Congress is at this time the most beneficial method for the achievement of our tactical and strategic objectives as Pan-Africanists. The meeting was certainly successful in terms of the aims it had set out in the Agenda. At the start of the meeting, we discussed at some length the thrust and breadth of the Agenda. You missed that. Eventually, we found it only necessary to alter the order of items in the tasks we had set ourselves to cover and went through our day‟s work expeditiously. In the initial stages of our discussions, we were slow and cagy in picking up momentum, but as time went on we moved forward with the Agenda with remarkable speed. I dare say we surprised ourselves.</font></font></p>
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<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">My greatest pleasure was to note that many of the ideals we share as an older generation are also held with fervour by the younger generation, and that they reveal a diversity of opinion and thought as variegated as those displayed by our generation. Some of these views were passionately articulated with logical dexterity and consummate expression. Others were intellectually roughshod and occasionally hot-headed. All of this mix made the meeting memorable.</font></font><font size="3" face="Times New Roman,Times New Roman"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman,Times New Roman"><br /></font></font><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">However, I came back from the meeting vaguely in two minds; unsure of the value in using the organizational formula of a Congress, as tradition has bequeathed, for rallying Pan-Africanist thought and practice in our times. It seems to me that the advantages of a Congress cannot match the benefits of a smaller, more focused and plumbing exercise where in-depth knowledge over a defined and specified area is deliberately favoured for the more definitive and earthbound answers needed for programmed and planned practice; yes practice; away from rhetorical flightiness and oracular pronouncements which may superficially sound earth-shaking and calculated to strike terror in the hearts of all real and putative detractors of Africans, but which in fact provide little or no practical guidance and realistic prescriptions for the emancipation of African people today. We can repackage the language of the inimitable and indomitable Marcus Garvey, but we cannot bring back the 1920s, the world he lived in, with lynchings, Jim Crow and unvarnished racism. To my mind the greatness of Garvey lies in the fact that, in his times, he enabled people of African descent to face their historical tormentors eyeball to eyeball. His boundless courage and absence of any recognizably stifling inhibitions fired the imagination of Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora. His remarkable organizational acumen and vision enabled him to set up with his acolytes the most ambitious political and economic structure people of African descent had seen before his time.<br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">I agree that state-led Pan-Africanism is a road to nowhere. This has been the experience of the last 50 years. Too quickly and too easily the leadership of African states subvert the real purposes and agenda of Pan-Africanism to suit their own petty and narrow flag and anthem purposes. Some of us have argued that these states, as we have them today, are more part of the problem than the solution. If our leaderships were more open and more serious about unity they will open the door to more people-to-people engagement, within and across borders; they would welcome democratically sponsored and popularly supported irredentism as a possible route to our collective ideal. But, their entrenched petty interests and hoggish attitudes in maintaining the</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">status quo</font></font></i> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">for the material and non-material benefits these provide eclipse their commitment to more meaningful and earnest efforts at unity. The example of post-Congress Uganda is a classic case in point. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">The Museveni regime treated the Secretariat of the Congress as its political property and in the initial period used it as one of its mouthpieces on the African continent. If we have another Congress under the auspices of whichever government or with the blessing of any host government in Africa, I am sure that a similar fate will befall it. I know there are some of us who would say, as we heard in the Johannesburg meeting, "provide these governments or states some space in our midst." I cannot in my own mind agree to this. I suppose it‟s like letting the lion out of the front door and letting the leopard in through the back door. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">During the meeting, I sometimes felt and heard in the sub-text of some participants that the shadow of continentalism was still stalking their minds. If we have a congress in which the issue of continentalism or non-continentalism rears its head, it would be most unfortunate for those amongst</font></font></p>
<font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">us who definitely want to put continentalism behind us. There are some who may think for their purposes it may be tactical not to raise the issue now, but come up with it in a congress. <br /></font></font><p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Equally worrying to my mind is the oftentimes near compulsive vulgarization of the catchword and slogan; "black power." I do not believe that in contemporary Africa this terminology deals with reality. We already have "black power" in Africa. Even in the former settler-colonial areas of Africa, we have been able to gain political power. The pertinent question and problem is what are we doing with the power that we have? I repeat, what are we doing with the power that we have? To talk about "black power" today in societies which are in almost all instances over ninety percent "black" is extravagantly fatuous and only succeeds to obscure our real political colouring. It reduces African politics and power contestation to irrelevancies and distractions. I think also that I read in that tendency an attempt to find blame with extraneous factors when the real culprits should be ourselves, the elites. We have now a half-century of independence, whatever problems we face collectively as Africans can be dealt with if we put our heads together and our shoulders to the task. To talk about our situation as if we are powerless is a lie. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">The notion of "black power" in African countries on the continent and the ideology of racial holism is an even bigger myth because it assumes that in African societies colour is or should be a determinant of power. But Africa proper is overwhelmingly black. Furthermore, it does not recognize the primacy of the fact that amongst black skins there are rich and poor, elevated and down-trodden, voluble and voiceless. Indeed, in any society, anywhere, power is within the structure of the society and the state differentially distributed. To believe that the leading societal contradictions we face in Africa, in our everyday lives are due to skin colour is misguided. It is totally wrong. People who say in Africa that our challenge is to install "black power" may be physically in Africa but in their minds living elsewhere (possibly the United States). Even in South Africa, the quintessential erstwhile settler-colonial state in Africa, Africans are now in power, and have been in power for fifteen years. Here Africans form more than three-quarters of the population. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">The idea of "black power" was born in the USA. Its first significant usage dates to the 1954 publication by Richard Wright of his reflections on the final stages of the Ghanaian march to independence entitled;</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Black Power</font></font></i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">. He had spent six months travelling in the Gold Coast (as Ghana then was). Wright was referring to the fact that Ghana‟s prospective independence represented, in his view, the first African country which had politically travelled that far; and where "black people" were coming to power. Of course, I need to draw attention here to the fact that this idea carries in itself the mistaken notion that Ghana was subsequently the first country in Africa proper to be independent. As I have often argued, this is not correct because the Sudan got its independence in January 1956; ahead of Ghana. The problem is that the Sudan, in the minds of many, is identified as an Arab country. Needless to say, this is not the case because the overwhelming majority of the people of Sudan are Africans not Arabs and incidentally, in the Sudan, you can hardly tell the</font></font> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">difference between an African and an Arab on the basis of colour. Both groups are overwhelmingly visibly black.</font></font> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><br />However, the popularization of the slogan "black power" came into currency through the US civil rights movement, during the tempestuous years of the 1960s. We are told that its political deployment was through the initiative and genius of Willie Ricks and Stokely Carmichael (a.k.a Kwame Toure). The precise historical location of this was the 1966 Meredith March in the South of the United States when as leading members of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) they used the slogan "black power" as a rallying call to galvanize minds and mobilize African-Americans for civil rights, local and community power. Apparently, this was meant also as an attempt to set up a contrastive ideological position to the argument of Martin Luther King and the members of the Southern Christian Leadership Committee (SCLC). King‟s position was an argument for "equal rights" while Carmichael and his SNCC membership were saying, "what do we want … we want black power." At that time "black power" was often translated to mean Black political and economic empowerment and control of predominantly Black towns, cities and counties in the South, especially in places like Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, Arkansas and Mississippi. In Carmichael‟s words during that period; "Everybody in this country is for „Freedom Now‟ but not everybody is for Black Power because we have got to get rid of some of the people who have white power. We have got to get us some Black Power. We don‟t control anything but what white people say we can control. We have to be able to smash any political machine in the country that‟s oppressing us and bring it to its knees. We have to be aware that if we keep growing and multiplying the way we do, in ten years all the major cities are going to be ours. We have to know that in Newark, New Jersey, where we are 60% of the population, we went along with their stories about integrating and we got absorbed. All we have to show for it is three councilmen who are speaking for them and not for us.<br />We have to organize ourselves to speak for each other. That‟s Black Power. We have to move to control the economics and politics of our community." This is how the person who popularized the term meant it to be. Carmichael frequently returned to this thesis. In the book he wrote with Charles Hamilton (</font></font><i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Black Power: The Politics of Liberation</font></font></i> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">– 1967) they exhorted and prodded African-Americans to take pride in their heritage, culture, institutions and descent, to cultivate a greater sense of solidarity and community-spirit in order to create, own and direct a singularly Black economic and political base that would augment the political bargaining position of African-Americans in their bid for equality in American society. <br /></font></font><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">In Simon Hall‟s insightful piece,</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">The NAACP, Black Power, and the African American Freedom Struggle, 1966 – 1969</font></font></i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">, he writes that; "On the evening of 17 June 1966, Stokely Carmichael, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), addressed a rally in Greenwood, Mississippi. The SNCC leader had been released from jail minutes before and acknowledged the „roar‟ of the angry crowd with a „raised arm and a clenched fist‟ as he moved forward to speak. „This is the 27</font></font><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond">th</font></font> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">time I have been arrested – and I ain‟t going to jail no more, I ain‟t going to jail no more,‟ he told the several hundred mostly local African Americans. „The only way we gonna stop them white men from</font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">whuppin‟ us is to take over. We been saying freedom for six years and we ain‟t got nothin‟. What we gonna start saying now is Black Power!‟ Carmichael proclaimed that „every courthouse in Mississippi ought to be burned tomorrow to get rid of the dirt … from now on when they ask what you want, you know what to tell „em. What do you want?‟ The crowd thundered back „Black Power!‟ " Even more telling are the observations he made on July the 28</font></font><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond">th</font></font><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">, 1966 when he said that; "There is a psychological war going on in this country and it‟s whether or not Black people are going to be able to use the terms they want about their movement without white peoples‟ blessing. We have to tell them we are going to use the term „Black Power‟ and we are going to define it because Black Power speaks to us. We can‟t let them project Black Power because they can only project it from white power and we know what white power has done to us. We have to organize ourselves to speak from a position of strength and stop begging people to look kindly upon us. We are going to build a movement in this country based on the colour of our skins that is going to free us from our oppressors and we have to do that ourselves." Carmichael‟s views are further elaborated in;</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism</font></font></i> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">(1971). <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">The point to be remembered here is that in the USA and many other places in the Western world the cultural denationalization of Africans has proceeded to such a thorough or near-thorough extent that colour has become the only badge and reference point of historical difference. It is therefore understandable that Africans in the Western Diaspora use colour as the marker of the different histories, different experiences between themselves and their fellow citizens. Furthermore, the oppressor has historically consistently used colour to set apart people of African descent and identify them for racist, exploitative and oppressive treatment. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Racism is about power relations in which physical attributes and/or culture are used to justify and practise discrimination, exploitation and oppression. Philosophically it belongs to the political right. As a socio-political feature its fundamental and frequently masked object is almost always economic. Certainly, to take the term "black power" out of its historical and social context and use it in a blanket fashion to cover all Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora is not only to distort its meaning, but also to open ourselves up to serious misinterpretation. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Equally perplexing for me is the frequent race talk that I hear and read from some of our colleagues. I can very well see the relevance of race pre-occupations in societies where, to different degrees, clearly anti-African racism both on the continent and in the Diaspora constitutes an everyday issue and haunting problem for people. I mean, for example in South Africa, the United States or many parts of Europe and some parts of South America. But we must remember that racism is not unique to the black-white context. Hitlerian racism as we all know was directed principally, but not exclusively, against European Jewry who are of the same colour as Germans. It was also immediately directed against the Roma people (Gypsies) and Slavs. Hitler regarded Africans as half-apes. As I earlier said, in the Sudan the contradiction between Arab and African does not lie along the colour</font></font> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">line. Israeli Jews and Arab Israelis do not physically differ, neither do the Koreans, Japanese and the Chinese differ by look and yet there have been historically racist and violent tensions and expressions between all these groups. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">In the Western world it is not only people of African descent who suffer from Western racism. Pakistanis and Indians in Britain, Arabs in France, Turks in Germany, Moroccans in the Netherlands, Spanish settlers and Amerindians in South America, Indians in Australia, Aboriginals in Australia, Native Americans, Mexicans and Hispanics in the United States all face racism on a daily basis. Therefore to talk about racism as if it is the particular preserve of the relationship between Westerners and people of African descent is at best ill-informed and at worst disingenuous. Racist attitudes have existed between Chinese and Malays, Indians and Malays, Indians and Chinese in South Asia and on the African continent racial tensions and feelings have been present in the relations between Lebanese and Africans, Indians and Africans. The Japanese (</font></font><i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Wajin</font></font></i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">) have for ages despised the Okinawans and Ainu of Hokkaido. Japanese treatment of</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Burakumin</font></font></i> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">is more or less the same as general Indian treatment of</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Dalits/Harijans</font></font></i> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">(Scheduled Castes). In both societies, the Indian and the Japanese, these fellow citizens are regarded as "untouchables." It is interesting to note that, in the Indian caste system, the Dalits who technically fall out of the caste system proper are historically derived from the Aboriginal peoples of India, the Dravidians. Many Russians have regarded Central Asians as racial inferiors. The list is much longer than this. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Racism is an evil which has for ages bedevilled inter-group relations within the human race. Sometimes, in practical effect, its objectives are genocidal. The studied beastliness and perversities of institutionalized racism are beyond all known animal behaviour. It is acquired; learnt behaviour. It is a condition which has to be fought as ruthlessly as it is ruthless. As the world globalizes and we all geographically and culturally pack-in like sardines, the urgency of this fight becomes by the day more pressing. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">My argument here should also extend to the record of slavery. The African holocaust, in particular the consequences of the Atlantic slave trade, in evil effect and horror, is second to none in the history of the human race. In space, intensity, time and scope, its dimensions cannot be equalled. But we must be careful not to talk about it as if we are the only people who have historically been enslaved. For a start, Arabs systematically traded in black skins a thousand years before the Westerners. This practice has continued to the present day. Equally telling has been the comprehensiveness of their pattern of cultural denationalization. Their mode of denationalization was geared towards removing all memory of Africaness within the shortest possible time. This is why in spite of the fact that in time span and absolute numbers they possibly eclipse the Atlantic slave trade, the existence of Africans in the Arab world is today hardly visible. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Let‟s remind ourselves about the extent and experience of slavery in human history with a few examples. The</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Code of Hammurabi</font></font></i> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">(1760 BC) from Babylon in the 18th century BC provides vivid</font></font> <font size="3" face="Times New Roman,Times New Roman"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman,Times New Roman">7</font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">details on slave life in the period. Slaves or the so-called helots of Greece were strongly in evidence from the 7th century BC. Both the principal states of Greece, Sparta and Athens, were driven largely on slave labour. In his time, Julius Caesar brought over a million slaves from routed armies from all corners of the empire back to Rome. As the Roman Empire expanded entire communities were enslaved, to create a steady supply of labour. The slaves of the Romans came from all over Europe and the Mediterranean. These included Berbers, Greeks, Britons, Germans, Thracians, Gauls, Jews, Arabs etc. Slavery was part and parcel of Genghis Khan‟s 13</font></font><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond">th</font></font> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">century imperial order. The Mamlukes, a warrior caste of slaves were dominant in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East for over 700 years. Islamic rulers created this warrior caste by pressing into service non-Muslim slave boys and training them as cavalry soldiers. Mamlukes were first used in Muslim armies in Syria by the Abbasid caliphate in the 9th century. They served as cavalry of the Ayyubid sultans from the 12th century onwards and later challenged their rulers for power. There were historically two dynasties of Mamluke sultans; the Bahris (1250-1382), mainly Turks and Mongols, and the Burjis (1382-1517), who were principally Circassians. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">The road to Irish subjugation by the English runs through Irish slavery. In the beginning of the 17th century, the English banished 30,000 Irish prisoners of war. This solution was however, for their purposes and intentions inadequate so James II, the last Catholic king of England, urged the selling of the Irish as slaves to planters and settlers in the Americas. The first lot of Irish slaves were sold to a colonial outpost on the Amazon River in 1612. A Proclamation in 1625 ordered that Irish political prisoners be shipped overseas and sold to English planters, who were then colonizing the West Indies. In 1629 a large group of Irish men and women were shipped off to Guyana. By 1632, Irish were the main slaves sold to Antigua and Montserrat in the West Indies. A 1637 census revealed that 69% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves. Irish slave labour was in such demand that, for the most inconsequential misdemeanour in colonised Ireland the culprit was shipped off. Slaving squads went round the Irish countryside lifting people to make up their quotas. In the 12 year period from 1641 to 1652, over 550,000 Irish were killed by the English and 300,000 were sold as slaves. The Irish population of Ireland fell from 1,466,000 to 616,000. In 1649, when under instructions of the Rump Parliament Oliver Cromwell and his Roundhead army landed in Ireland, they laid a siege around Drogheda and put some 30,000 Irish in the city to the sword. Cromwell is reported to have observed that; "I do not think 30 of their whole number escaped with their lives. Those that did are in safe custody in the Barbados." A few months later, in 1650, 25,000 Irish were sold to planters in St. Kitts. During the 1650s over 100,000 Irish children, generally from 10 to 14 years old, were taken from Catholic parents and sold as slaves in the West Indies, Virginia and New England. In fact, more Irish were sold as slaves to the American colonies and plantations from 1651 to 1660 than the total of the then existing "free" population of the Americas. After the "Bloody Assizes" of 1685 a good number of the English prisoners were sent to the West Indies as slaves.</font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">For centuries, till the early part of the 20</font></font><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond">th</font></font> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">century, Circassian and Georgian women slaves (from the North Caucasus) were invaluable commodities in Turkish homes, harems and seraglios. Mark Twain</font></font> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">noted in 1869 in</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">The Innocents Abroad</font></font></i> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">that "Circassian and Georgian girls are still sold in Constantinople by their parents, but not publicly." Slavery in China dates back to the earliest period of Chinese civilization. In his book;</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">A History of Chinese Civilization</font></font></i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">, (1996), Jacques Gernet points out that Chinese agricultural slaves were intensively utilized in the fifteenth century, and by the late sixteenth century it was observed that all the Manchu military officers had both field and house slaves. Between 1645 and 1647, Manchu rulers enslaved large numbers of local people on previously Han Chinese-owned estates in North China, eastern Mongolia and the Peking area. For cultivation, they used a slave-labour force of former landowners and prisoners of war. Slavery in China was technically abolished in 1910, but transformed and lingered on right into the 20</font></font><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond">th</font></font> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">century until the emergence of modern China.<br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Slavery was abolished in Nepal in 1924. Yet in 1997, human rights observers reported that 40,000 Nepalese workers were being subjected to near-slave conditions and 200,000 kept as bondsmen and women. The Nepalese Maoist-led government has only recently in 2008 abolished the slavery-like</font></font></p>
<i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Haliya</font></font></i> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">system. A large slave –labour class was present in the old Khmer Empire (present day Cambodia). These slaves built the monuments in Angkor Wat. Between the 17th and the early 20th centuries one-quarter to one-third of the population of some areas of Thailand and Burma were slaves. In Thailand, Siam as it then was, the prisoners of war became the property of the king. During the reign of King Rama the 3</font></font><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond">rd</font></font> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">(1824-1851), there were an estimated 46,000 war slaves. Slavery was not abolished in Siam until 1905. Slavery in Japan was for most of its history indigenous. This is probably because for centuries before the Meiji Restoration (1868) Japan was a closed society. However in the 16th century, Koreans were shipped to Japan as slaves during the Japanese raids in the peninsula. In the late 16</font></font><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="1" face="Garamond,Garamond">th</font></font> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">century slavery was officially outlawed in Japan; but forms of unfree labour persisted. In the making of South African society Western settlers brought into the Cape slaves from West Africa, East Africa, India, Malaysia and Indonesia. So let us regard slavery for what it is, indeed, a universal historical phenomenon with no exceptions among victims and perpetrators in humanity. But when that has been said, we must also say that, although the reality of slavery has been historically ubiquitous, without doubt, the extent and depth of its infliction on us, as Africans, is without parallel.</font></font><p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">I think what is important at this stage for us to get off the ground and going is a cultural movement, a cultural movement which will provide in effect confidence and affirmation for our people with regard to our historical heritage and cultural patrimony. This is what we have, together with many other people thought of as a</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Sankofa Movement</font></font></i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">. In other words, the reclamation of values, tenets and institutions of our African heritage. Without reclaiming and repositioning ourselves with these bequeathments, in my estimation, there is no hope for our sustained advancement. By this, I do not mean rigging ourselves with the externals or superficialities of our heritage; I do not mean the outer finery of African culture; I mean the central institutions – religious, social, and cultural – of our belongings. I do not mean a fluffy, contrived or colourful ritual celebration of our nativeness to emphasize the fact that our nativeness is losing ground in a Western dominated world. <br /></font></font><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">When we plead for a</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Sankofa</font></font></i> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">approach we are saying that we want a selective and judicious reclamation of our substantial cultural patrimony not an infantile and wholesale reappropriation of every cultural habit from the past. To give a concrete example, I think we need to be able to put our religious and ritual traditions on the same level as the received cultures of Islam and Christianity. Let us treat our own as equal in all respects to the foreign borrowings of Christianity and Islam and allow our people to choose freely, selecting what they like and what suits them best in any situation. The Japanese managed to achieve a good blend of their indigenous Shintoism and imported Buddhism. If we dismiss our traditions and treat them as backward, heathen, primitive, we will never be able to hold our own or our heads up within the human community. I am not saying that we must, fired by sentiments of naive atavism and blind tenacity hold on to age-old practices which may be developmentally unhelpful, defunct or backward. I mean we should be able to discard and reject what is obviously decrepit or modify what we consider to be needful in order to meet the challenges of the present without compromising the core values of our cultural heritage.</font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Another example; in South Africa ever since I came here in 1992, every year during the period when the passage of the circumcision rite is in season, countless hapless youngsters are either grievously mutilated, genitally amputated, or killed in the process of botched surgeries. We insist on circumcision taking place in obviously unsanitary and uncongenial circumstances in the bush and on the ground with little by way of protection from the elements. Such conditions are assumed to be the "genuine conditions" which the institution has lived with from time immemorial. But I ask you, what is more important with respect to this institution; is it the rite of passage; the values that are instilled in the youth, the commitments that are contracted for social and cultural purposes from the youth or the external trappings of the bush, scant clothes, old-fashioned blades and knives. Is it the core values and social commitments, or the epiphenomenal nuances of ambiance, dance and ritual? If it is the former, then obviously we do not need to keep the unhygienic and unsanitary conditions which surround the circumcision rite. Try explaining this to many of our people.<br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">I have often explained that circumcision is not restricted to Africans or any group of Africans. As a tradition, circumcision is fairly common on the African continent and beyond. It is common to large parts of Asia and the Middle East. Jews practice circumcision and have done so from time immemorial. Muslims likewise also practice circumcision. But in both these instances, today circumcision is carried out mainly by qualified medical doctors in hygienic and comfortable conditions. This does not detract from the rite of passage it comes with as an institution. The fact that the circumstances in which circumcision is carried out can keep abreast with modernity does not undermine the institution. I would argue that it only goes to strengthen it. It only goes to show that the institution is evolving with time and discarding aspects which are unhelpful. We do not have to be caught in a time-warp of backwardness through wilful, irrational and uninformed stubborn attitudes. We only discredit our tradition and make ourselves the laughing stock of the world.</font></font><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><br />What goes without saying is the fact that without our cultures there is little or no hope for meaningful change for Africans. I mean change which will ensure that we developmentally advance and do not culturally disappear. Please remember, it is not our colour which will guarantee our continued existence. It is our culture. If we allow ourselves to be assimilated by Arab or Western culture, we shall as Africans disappear. This point cannot be over-emphasized. For our historical salvation as a people, the more we understand the importance of the culture question, the less important skin colour and so-called racial factors appear to be. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">For the present, the</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Sankofa Movement</font></font></i> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">is most crucial. We have got to convince and engage the minds and activities of all our creative people; artists, writers, musicians etc, to remind our people about the vitality and saliency of our cultural belongings in any drive towards modernity and societal advancement. Development is ultimately a cultural construction. Once this message and its import win the hearts and minds of our people the political implications and requirements will become easily perceptible and a natural evolution towards a political movement will be within our grasp. I am saying that the road to a political movement for unity and African advancement must start in our times with an Africanist cultural and intellectual movement. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">The cultural route to democracy and unity assumes the use of our languages as instruments for the empowerment of people. We transact all our social interaction on the basis of language and indeed language itself is a record of the history of the people who use the language. Language is also a register of the extent of our perceptible world. Without doubt, it is the central area of culture and carries culture in its entirety. If we want to make progress we cannot achieve this without the use of our languages. These languages which are spoken by the overwhelming majorities of our people are the instruments for deepening the culture of democracy. I am in my mind convinced that when we start using and developing our languages, the road to unity would be put on firmer ground. I ask, would it not be better, if a congress is the way forward for us, to restrict its focus to cultural considerations? Please give this serious thought because a congress which in ideas is here and there and everywhere and therefore nowhere would be a repeat performance of all the weaknesses of the last one. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Also, we cannot have democracy in any societally meaningful way if the pursuit and exercise of democracy is not grounded on cultural usages understood, recognized, appreciated and shared by the broad masses of African society. Too often, too many people want to suggest that democracy is foreign to Africans. There is of course the classic saying of General Mobutu to justify his dictatorship; "where have you ever seen two chiefs in an African village?" I also heard someone once remark that; "leave Rawlings alone to get on with his job. When the chief has spoken, it should be last word on the matter." Such sentiments are obviously unhelpful in modern African societies attempting to build democracy. But such sentiments cannot be uprooted or enforced by decree. With time the sentiments die out in the face of evolving realities and more suitable practice. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Years ago, during my spell as a Visiting Professor in China (1980), one day on a journey to Sian, the ancient capital of China, driving through miles of spectacular ancient monuments in the approach to the city, I asked my host the Director of the Institute for West Asian and African Studies, why in the wake of the death of Mao and the fall of the Gang of Four, Chinese opinion seemed to have discovered suddenly that their regard for Mao had been inordinately elevated. His response was that, I should never forget that China is a country which for 3000 years has had emperors; it is unrealistic to expect that suddenly, however sweeping the changes of modernity may have been since 1949, for such sentiments of the lofty supremacy of the leader to be altogether devoid of past notions of imperial status and aura. I of course immediately understood what he meant. In similar fashion many tradition-bound Africans may have sentiments of excessive admiration and elevated status for our contemporary heads of state. But with time and experience, in the eyes of the people, such leaders will be brought down to ordinary human levels. This cannot be decreed. Only experience and evolutionary or revolutionary practice will alter this. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Let‟s also remember that, democracy in its operations and conceptualization is not cast in stone for all societies at all times in the same way. What democracy meant in practice in the United States in 1900 is very different from what it means now. In the 1950s, an African-American was not tolerated as a student in the University of Mississippi. In 2008 Obama debated McCain in the same institution for the presidency of the country. Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland did not have the same civil rights until the 1960s and 70s. Women had the vote in England less than 100 years ago and long after the franchise had been extended universally to the male of the species. Democracy in Britain still includes a place called the House of Lords for people specially elevated to the status of Lords or those who have inherited these titles. Such an institution would be today unacceptable to the French. What I am saying is that democracy is not only historically specific, but societally also so. In all these societies democratic practice and institutions are adapted to the specificities of history and culture. We can simply not borrow wholesale in a one-size-fits-all approach, democracy from anywhere and implant it in Africa. We need to make democratic institutionalization fit cultural and historical relevancies. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Another point I can make with conviction is that part of the reason for our blindness and inability to move forward towards unity in a systematic way, with a clear road map, is because we lack a strong and all-embracing African national consciousness. This also partly explains the continued adherence of so many people to continentalism. I must warn immediately that my understanding of national consciousness goes beyond neo-colonialism or the nationalism tailor-made for the</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">ersatz</font></font></i> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">states created under Western tutelage, sponsorship and blessing. In fact, neo-colonial nationalism throws a fog before us in terms of our ability to see our way forward. It makes us creatures of Western intent and drives us into a conceptual cul-de-sac with respect to a positive and creative rendition of nationalism which identifies the unities and diversities of African cultures and histories whilst recognizing the overriding unifying characteristics within these diversities. How can a Tswana in</font></font> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">Botswana regard him/herself as culturally, historically and nationally separate from a Tswana in South Africa or a Sotho in Lesotho? <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">It is interesting to note that during the colonial interlude and the end of colonialism we started manufacturing historical narratives to rationalize and justify our handed-down post-colonial states, which we call nations, and which are supposed to be the practicalization and ultimate repositories of our nationalism. We wrote; "A History of Zambia"; "A History of Ghana"; "A History of Namibia"; A History of Uganda", etc., etc. to make real what a few years before did not exist and was in actual fact unreal. We tuned our politics into the realities of these</font></font> <i><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">ersatz</font></font></i> <font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">states and behaved as if these states had been handed down from Adam. These states are not viable and will in the end prove to be so. I am sure in my life-time I shall not see this unity, but I am equally sure that the slow decomposition of these states in favour of greater African unity will in due course come to pass. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">African unity does not have to mean one single heavily centralized entity. That is unlikely to work and I dare say, undesirable. African unity can only be achieved on the basis of the recognition of cultural differentiation, diversity and decentralization of rule. People have to be able to rule themselves in their own little corners in their different ways and different forms of order. But all this can best and easily be accommodated under a wide umbrella which unifies us all and our common interests. <br /></font></font></p>
<p><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond"><font size="3" face="Garamond,Garamond">To close, I must say clearly that I do not subscribe to the idea of "the whole world is against us." This is simply misguided and untrue. In all communities and amongst all people around the world there will always be some who support us in the name of justice, fairness, democracy, freedom and emancipation. It is very true that only Africans can save Africa and we must fight by all means necessary to uplift and unite our people. But we are not alone in our wish to uplift our people and end the injustice, exploitation and oppression that we have suffered for hundreds of years. All truly democratic and freedom loving people support us. <br /></font></font></p>
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<div><strong>* About</strong> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}3828520892,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><strong><em><font size="4">Gen Ishola Williams.rtf</font></em></strong></a><br /></div>
<div><strong><em>Submitted by B..F.Bankie<br />Sudan Sensitisation Project (SSP)<br /></em></strong><a><strong><em>www.bankie.info</em></strong></a><br /></div></div>