Lessons from Marcus Garvey: Lesson 3 Charting Your Destiny

We Are Arbiters of Our Own Destiny

God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of

0ur own creative genius we make ourselves what we want to 

be. Follow always that great law.

Let the sky and God be our limit, and Eternity our 

measurement. There is no height to which we cannot climb 

by using the active intelligence of our own minds. Mind 

creates, and as much as we desire in Nature we can have 

through the creation of our own minds. - Marcus Garvey 

Source: http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/mgpp/lifesamp.asp

Printed in the Negro World, 6 June 1925, as a front-page editorial; written in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. Original headlines omitted. Creed reprinted in slightly revised form, under the title "African Fundamentalism," as a UNIA poster, sold by mail order through the Negro World by Amy Jacques Garvey, 1925.

Lessons from Marcus Garvey: Lesson 2 Self-Reliance

"CHANCE has never yet satisfied the hopes of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realized the light of their own freedom. "- Marcus Garvey  

Source: The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Or Africa for Africans 
                    Compiled by Amy Jacques Garvey
                    First published in 1923 
                    http://www.jpanafrican.com/ebooks/eBook%20Phil%20and%20Opinions.pdf

Lessons from Marcus Garvey: Lesson 1- Race First and African Fundamentalism

New 25-day series, Lessons from Marcus Garvey.  The Right Excellent Marcus Mosiah Garvey (August 17, 1887 - June 10, 1940), is Jamaica’s first National Hero, pioneering Pan- African philosopher, visionary, Black nationalist and  political leader. 

Lately I have been reading a lot of Garvey particularly, Tony Martin’s Race First and Marcus Garvey Message to the People (the majority of the books are available in Google Books). 

Marcus Garvey’s African Fundamentalism

The time has come for the Negro to forget and cast behind him his hero worship and adoration of other races, and to start out immediately, to create and emulate heroes of his own.

We must canonize our own saints, create our own martyrs, and elevate to positions of fame and honor black men and women who have made their distinct contributions to our racial history. Sojourner Truth is worthy of the place of sainthood alongside of Joan of Arc; Crispus Attucks and George William Gordon are entitled to the halo of martyrdom with no less glory than that of the martyrs of any other race. Toussaint L'Ouverture's brilliancy as a soldier and statesman outshone that of a Cromwell, Napoleon and Washington; hence, he is entitled to the highest place as a hero among men. Africa has produced countless numbers of men and women, in war and in peace, whose lustre and bravery outshine that of any other people. Then why not see good and perfection in ourselves?

Ours the Right to Our Doctrine

We must inspire a literature and promulgate a doctrine of our own without any apologies to the powers that be. The right is ours and God's. Let contrary sentiment and cross opinions go to the winds. Opposition to race independence is the weapon of the enemy to defeat the hopes of an unfortunate people. We are entitled to our own opinions and not obligated to or bound by the opinions of others.

Source: http://www.international.ucla.edu/africa/mgpp/lifesamp.asp

FREEING OUR MINDS EMANCIPATION DAY 2012

Ivan Van Sertima and Africa's Contribution to Global Civilization

Ivan Gladstone Van Sertima (26 January 1935 – 25 May 2009) was an associate professor of Africana Studies at Rutgers University in the United States.

He is best known for his Olmec alternative origin speculations, a brand of pre-Columbian contact theory, which he proposed in his book They Came Before Columbus (1976). While his Olmec theory has "spread widely in the African American community, both lay and scholarly", it was mostly ignored in Mesoamericanist scholarship, or else dismissed as Afrocentric pseudohistory to the effect of "robbing native American cultures".

Van Sertima was born in Karina Village, Guyana, when Guyana was still a British colony; he retained his British citizenship throughout his life. He completed primary and secondary school in Guyana, and started writing poetry.He attended the School of Oriental and African Studies(SOAS) at the University of London from 1959. In addition to his creative writing, Van Sertima completed his undergraduate studies in African languages and literature at SOAS in 1969, where he graduated with honors.  During his studies, he learned Swahili and Hungarian. From 1957 to 1959, worked a Press and Broadcasting Officer in the Guyana Information Services During the 1960s, he worked for several years in Great Britain as a journalist, doing weekly broadcasts to the Caribbean and Africa. Van Sertima married Maria Nagy in 1964; they adopted two sons.

In doing field work in Africa, he compiled a dictionary of Swahili legal terms in 1967.

In 1970 Van Sertima immigrated to the United States, where he entered Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for graduate work.

He published his They Came Before Columbus 1976, as a Rutgers graduate student. The book deals mostly with his claims of African origin of Mesoamerican culture in the Western Hemisphere, but among other things also writing that the kings of the 25th Dynasty of Egypt were Nubians. The book, published by Random House rather than an academic press, was a bestseller and achieved widespread attention within the African American community for his claims of prehistoric African contact and diffusion of culture in Central and South America. It was generally "ignored or dismissed" by academic experts at the time and strongly criticized in detail in an academic journal in 1997.

Sertima completed his master's degree at Rutgers in 1977. He became Associate Professor of African Studies at Rutgers in the Department of Africana Studies. In 1979, Van Sertima founded the Journal of African Civilizations, which he exclusively edited and published for decades.

He published several annual compilations, volumes of the journal dealing with various topics of African history. His article, "The Lost Sciences of Africa: An Overview" (1983), makes claims for early African advances in metallurgy, astronomy, mathematics, architecture, engineering, agriculture, navigation, medicine and writing. He claimed that higher learning, in Africa as elsewhere, was the preserve of elites in the centres of civilizations, rendering them vulnerable in the event (as happened in Africa) of the destruction of those centers and the disappearance of the knowledge. Van Sertima discussed such "African scientific contributions" in an essay for the volume African Renaissance, published in 1999 (he had first published the essay in 1983). This was a record of the conference held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in September 1998 on the theme of the so-called African Renaissance.

After divorcing his first wife, Sertima remarried in 1984, to Jacqueline L. Patten, who had two daughters.

On July 7, 1987, Van Sertima testified before a United States Congressional committee to oppose recognition of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's "discovery" of the Americas. He said, "You cannot really conceive of how insulting it is to Native Americans . . . to be told they were discovered".

Van Sertima retired in 2006. He died on 25 May 2009 aged 74.He was survived by his wife and four adult children. His widow, Jacqueline Van Sertima, said she would continue to publish theJournal of African Civilizations. She also planned to publish a book of his poetry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_van_Sertima

South Sudan's Independence and breaking the bonds of colonialism

On Saturday South Sudan became the world's newest nation and African 54th country. 

Map  showing the established borders of Sudan and  South Sudan 

Sudan, the largest and one of the most geographically diverse states in Africa, split into two countries in July 2011 after the people of the south voted for independence.

The world's newest nation was born at midnight East African Time last Saturday. Independence marked the the climax of a process made possible by the 2005 peace deal that ended a long civil war.

The South's independence follows decades of conflict with the north in which some 1.5 million people died. 

South Sudan's independence following a referendum held in January 2011 in which nearly 99% of voters opted for separation from the rest of Sudan.

Saturday's independence ceremony was held at the mausoleum of the late rebel leader John Garang, who died just months after signing the peace deal with Mr Bashir that ended Africa's longest-running conflict. 

While we celebrate with South Sudan and look towards a bright future for the long suffering Southerners we must acknowledge that moving forward will be hard.  


South Sudan is in an oil rich region but is considered to be the most underdeveloped country in the world. 


South Sudan most now move to build basic infrastructure and amenities such as roads, schools, hospitals, schools and the like.  


However, I see good in all this. As a student of African history I am proud and happy that Sudan is the first country to break the artificial and forced boundaries established under colonial rule.   


In what is termed the "Scramble for Africa" also known as the Race for Africa and the Partition of Africa  was the process of annexation, colonization of African territories by Europe between 1881 to the start of the World War I in 1914. 


European imperialist created artificial boundaries and called them countries wherein ethnic groups and nation-states were forced to live within laws that did not fit the African personality. Such laws are exported from Europe ( such a the British common law that former colonies of Britain like Jamaica continue to struggle operate in). 




 After the 1960s the Decade of Independence for most African and Caribbean nations that were colonized these artificial boundaries were maintained and Sudan is the first nation to act to change from these colonial spatial definitions. 


I will watching closely to see how  South Sudan and Sudan adjusts. And I pray and wish them success as this may be the step needed to end the ethnic clashes that have plagued Africa since the end of official colonial rule. 


For the next few weeks Envasa will have a South Sudan post independence series as we monitor the transitional period. 


What do you think of the independence of South Sudan? Do you think other African countries can benefit from the Sudan-South Sudan model? or is it just too soon to tell?   

Desmond Tutu ‘God is not a Christian’

 I saw this interesting piece on New African Magazine homepage and decided to share it with you. I am in complete agreement with his sentiments. Christianity is a fairly new religious and life philosophy while the presence of and the belief in a Supreme Element (of whatever name, shape, size, colour or race) has been intrinsic in human civilization and cosmic realities. So I invite you to read the excerpt below and then discuss. Is God a Christian?

New African Magazine Homepage
“God is clearly not a Christian. His concern is for all his children. To claim God exclusively for Christians is to make God too small and in a real sense is blasphemous. God is bigger than Christians and cares for more than Christians only,” writes Archbishop Desmond Tutu in his new book, God Is Not A Christian, a collection of some of his speeches, sermons, lectures, letters, and exchanges from the past three decades. Below is an excerpt from the book.

Most Christians believe that they get their mandate for exclusivist claims from the Bible. Jesus does say that no one can come to the Father except through him, and in Acts we hear it proclaimed that there is no other name under heaven that is given for salvation (John 14:6; Acts 4:12). Those passages seem to be categorical enough to make all debate superfluous. But is this all that the Bible says, with nothing, as it were, on the side of inclusiveness and universality, and does the exclusivist case seem reasonable in the light of human history and development? 

The Most Reverend Doctor Desmond Mpilo Tutu (born 7 October 1931) is a South African activist and Christian cleric who rose to worldwide fame during the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid. He was the first black South African Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town., South Africa, and primate of the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (now the Anglican Church of Southern Africa).

Archbishop Tutu has been active in the defense of human rights and uses his high profile to campaign for the oppressed. He has campaigned to fight AIDS, tuberculosis,  homophobia, transphobia, poverty and racism. Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism in 1986, the Ghandi Peace Prize in 2005, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009. Tutu has also compiled several books of his speeches and sayings.

Beyond the news- Cote d' I voire

This is what  you have probably heard: 

Ivory Coast faces many hurdles to peace

The prolonged fall of Laurent Gbagbo continued Wednesday, casting a pall over Abidjan, a city that’s been ground to a halt by nearly a week of urban warfare.

Two efforts by forces loyal to the internationally recognized president Alassane Ouattara to storm a bunker under the presidential palace where Gbagbo is reported to be hiding with his wife and family failed to dislodge the defiant former leader who refuses to step aside.

The crisis that has gripped Ivory Coast since its election in November has seen the resurgence of heavily armed militias and ethnic violence in a country already long divided between north and south. The economy is near collapse and both sides of the conflict have been accused of horrific human rights violations. Reports suggest both sides have armed notoriously hard-to-control militias and recruited civilian fighters and mercenaries. from The Toronto Star

AND THIS IS THE TRUTH BEHIND THE NEWS: 

New African Magazine

January 2008 archived edition

Focus

CFA How France lives off Francophone Africa via the CFA franc Professor Mamadou Koulibaly, Speaker of the Ivorian National Assembly and Professor of Economics, sheds light on the economic devastation caused to the African member states of the CFA (Communauté  Financière d’Afrique – [French Community of Africa]) zone through their continued link to the French currency – the Franc – in the past and today to the euro. In this informative interview with New African’s Ruth Tete and Soh Taadhieu, Professor Koulibaly does not mince his words as he calls for a total split and the creation of an independent currency free of colonial baggage. Question: Could you explain to our readers, what are the principle mechanisms of the CFA Franc Zone? Answer: The CFA franc region represents a state-controlled zone of cooperation with, interestingly, the levers of control based in Paris, from where the priority is the interests of France. The satellite states that are members of this zone are dispersed in West and Central Africa. The operational logic driving the functioning of this zone brings to mind a similarity with the way the Eastern European states were linked during the Cold War to the former Soviet bloc through the Warsaw Pact. The principals of monetary cooperation between France and the member states of the CFA zone were formulated in the 1960s in a colonial pact which was reviewed in the monetary cooperation convention of 23 November 1972 between the member states of the Banque des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale (BEAC) (Bank of Central African States) and the French Republic on one hand, as well as in the cooperation agreement of 4 December 1973 between the member states of the Union Monétaire Ouest-Africaine (UMOA) (or the Monetary Union of West African States) and the French Republic on the other hand. Just before France conceded to African demands for independence in the 1960s, it carefully organised its former colonies in a system of compulsory solidarity which consisted of obliging the African states to put 65% of their foreign currency reserves into the French Treasury, b ased on the convertibility, at a rigid exchange rate of the CFA – a currency France had created for them.  Gbagbo opposes French Colonial Pact According to President Gbagbo’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Koffi Charlse (Ouattara has since sent his own UN ambassador to New York), “the core of the problem in Cote d’Ivoire is a conspiracy by the French government to use any means necessary to remove Gbagbo from power because they think he is dangerous and inimical to their interests in Francophone Africa. But Gbagbo will not allow the French to control and run Cote d’Ivoire on their own terms.” Now form an objective opinion.

Just Sharing (Highlights from Holiday4Hope Cameroon)

I am a UN Online Volunteer and I am just sharing one of the projects I am attached is the Project of Great Hope led b y a Cameroon NGO known as TechCeFaCos International. To learn more please visit http://projectofgreathope.wordpress.com/