Some Axioms of Nana John Henrik Clarke Education for a new reality in the African world must be an education that enables the African to handle all of the wealth producing resources of Africa, an education that enables the African to manage and market these resources and an education that enables him or her to prepare the generations still to come to do the same thing. A large number of African children should be chosen at birth and trained toward these ends and all education should be toward the total sovereignty of African people. In a revolution youve got no friends and youve got no relatives. Youve got the people on your side and the ones not on your side. If blood dont see fit to come on your side, then shame on blood. Thats what it means to be in a revolution. “...history is a clock that tells a people their historical time of day. It is a compass that people use to locate themselves on the map of human geography. A people’s history tells a people where they have been and what they have been, where they are, and what they are. More importantly, a proper understanding of history tells a people what they still must be and where they still must go.” We came out of a society that did not write out agreements. If we said something verbally, our mouth was sweet. That meant we could be trusted, and we didnt have to write it into law. If anybody sees you crating a pattern, they know its yours. You dont have to copyright the pattern because nobodys going to steal it. Once more we see honor and obligation running through the totality of our society and the totality of ourselves. “We have a conflict within ourselves about how to use culture as an instrument of liberation. If we had confidence in our culture, the second rate cultures of other people would not fascinate us.” Each generation must assume the responsibility of securing their manhood, their womanhood, the definition of their being on earth that in the final analysis is nationhood. One of the sadder aspects of the plight of African people is that there are too many times when they search for an ideology for their salvation without first looking among themselves. Too many times their ideology is borrowed from their former slave masters and is not applicable to their case....The ideas that were dreamed and created in Europe by Europeans were created to maintain European power and domination. These ideas are not applicable to our case. Therefore, in the search for an ideology we need to be original and creative, and we need to recognize the fact that powerful people never educate powerless people in how to take their power away from them. Therefore an ideology for our salvation will have to be created by us to suit our case, and we need not be apologetic about it. Remember, nearly everybody we ever befriended has turned on us. People never return our favors. I only debate with my equals; all others I teach. The quality and nature of the struggle waged in this country by black people must be viewed in a historical context. First, it must be recognized that we were brought here against out will, thereby making us, en masse, political prisoners. I think that the greatest change is going to have to be with each one of you and your greatest memorial to those who have died in the Middle Passage will be what each individual one of you does to bring revolutionary change to yourself and your community. If God chooses one people over another people, then God is a bigot. There is no way to understand world history without an understanding of African history. If you expect the present day school system to give history to you, you are dreaming. This, we have to do ourselves. The Chinese didnt go out in the world and beg people to teach Chinese studies or let them teach Chinese studies. The Japanese didnt do that either. People dont beg other people to restore their history; they do it themselves. Most human behavior is controlled by images. Image is a factor in how people look at themselves and what they use to reflect themselves. The control of images is a major factor in world power. When a people redefine themselves, they seek new directions and they are not satisfied until they become their own masters. ...just recently the cause of Blacks was linked with the cause of gays. The ship brought no gays. They brought all men with their manhood, and women with their womanhood, and men who knew what to do with their manhood with no confusion. When Nature or God, or whoever you want to call it, designed man and woman, he purposefully designed them to go together. He did not design man to romance man. By design heres not only a perfect fit with the lady, it is a glorious fit. It is something that should be approached with a certain degree of sacredness in its own time and in its own place. This is why you cannot compare the African attitude with the European attitude; they are coming from different cultural points of view. The European living in varying climates and the Arab living in the sand made different uses of the female and developed a different attitude toward the female. Taken out of the African environment and placed in the European environment, you may develop the same traits and habits of the European without knowing that many of these traits are about as un-African as they can be. When people move you out of history, theyre trying to oppress you and to make you think that you need to be oppressed....you cannot consciously oppress a consciously historical people because a consciously historical people would not let it happen. Because our memories are short and we have not, creatively, connected history into an instrument of our Liberation most of us do not know that there was no ideology in the world until we created one. Therefore our search for an ideology is a search for our lost values, culturally, politically and socially. “We are following a people who do not know where they are going.” Could part of this dilemma be that some of us have been slaves so long that we are now afraid to become our own masters? If we are going to be masters of our destiny, we must be masters of the ideas that influence that destiny. If you realized how much you meant to the world, and how much has been extracted from you in order to make the world, you would walk out of oppression. You wouldnt even have to fight to walk out of it; youd just walk out of it....You would realize your own definition of yourself. Do your best work. In Africa..., the womans place was not only with her family; she often ruled nations with unquestionable authority. Many African women were great militarists, and on occasion led their armies in battle. The Africans had produced a civilization where men were secure enough to let women advance as far as their talent, royal lineage and prerogatives would take them. You study what we need. “We have not yet called Africa our holy land.” People rise and fall within the context of the nation institution. When they loose the ability to master and control the nation institution, they loose their freedom. The final interpretation of African History is the responsibility of scholars of African descent. While Christopher Columbus still prevails as a major hero to the Western world, sometime in the not too distant future, if African and Indian scholars who are descendants of those who were murdered, start writing books about the opening-up of the New World, and start using new and old documents, especially the work of Bartholomew de las Casas, Christopher Columbus will emerge as one of the great villains of human history, which, indeed, he was. When this revelation becomes apparent to most of the world, I still think there will be a need for Columbus Day but it will be a justifiable day of mourning for the millions of Africans and so-called Indians who died to accommodate the spread of European control over the Americas and Caribbean Islands. Nat Turner had an understanding of power in his day superior to any understanding reflected by the Black radicals and revolutionary pretenders of today....Nat Turners revolt had a message for his day and a far greater message for our day. That message in part is that no people should ever forget or forgive slavery and humiliation. The total dehumanization is what has to be looked at. All history is a current event and everything that has ever happened continues to happen until we learn to correct it. We must see our young people as the seeds of tomorrows harvest. If we lose them we will lose the future. When people decide who they are, they also decide what they have to do about their condition. First, they look backward in order to look forward; then try to find out how they were lost from history in the first place. Your mission is to remember and to teach your children so that they can remember it. Contrary to popular belief, Cleopatra did not commit suicide over the loss of Mark Antony. Her great love was Egypt. She was a shrewd politician and an Egyptian nationalist. She committed suicide when she lost control of Egypt. If someone else has to decide the rules of your existence, you are a prisoner to the person who made the decision. If you are peaceful and give everybody in the world a guarantee that you are going to be peaceful and not hurt anybody, theres nothing you can be in this kind of world but a slave. You cannot fight to become a part of the apparatus of your slave master. If you do, you will re-enslave yourself. Your job is to destroy that apparatus. The genius of the Europeans is that they have a talent for draining diseases. They have always drained their political sores on the lands of other people. They have the talent for recovering their internal losses by external extraction from people who had nothing to do with the crimes committed against them. Powerful people never educate the victims of their power in how to take their power away from them...The ideology of our former slave masters cannot save us. We will not be truly liberated until we are the main instruments of our liberation. The liberation that I am mainly concerned with here is the liberation of our minds from being dependent on other peoples to do our thinking.” ...the egos of most white Americans are so bloated that they cannot conceive of a black man rejecting them. ... freedom is not free. Freedom is something you take with your own hands. You maintain it with your own hands. Freedom is not handed down from one generation to another. Each generation must assume the responsibility of securing their manhood, their womanhood, the definition of their being on earth that in the final analysis is nationhood. When you realize how unworthy your master is, youll no longer serve him. Heritage is how a people have used their talent to create a history that gives them memories that they can respect and which they can use to command the respect of other people. The ultimate purpose of heritage and heritage teaching is to use a peoples talent to develop an awareness and pride in themselves so that they can become a better instrument for living together with other people. This sense of identity is the stimulation for peoples honest and creative efforts. A peoples relationship to their heritage is the same as the relationship of a child to its mother. There is no way to move any people from a lower to a higher position unless they are willing to accept some form of collective discipline. We are veterans at making alliances with people who betray us, and the only reason that they betray us is that we do not control the apparatus of the alliances nor do we punish people who betray us. The colonizing of history is equal to the crime of slavery, because one crime relates to the other. What Ive been pointing to is that if theres going to be a world revolution among Afrikan people we have to locate Afrikan people and connect with Afrikan people. No matter what ourselves and what island we came from or what part of Georgia or Alabama, we can still identify with these regions. But the overall identification is with Afrika and with Afrikan people wherever they are on the face of this Earth. We have a lot of scholars, writers and politicians doing more talking than writing and more talking than acting. We have enough actors. We have enough people to talk about us and to beg. We now need people who understand what real liberation is all about and who will act to make positive change for black people happen. The aftermath of the slave trade might be worse than the trade itself mainly because the major participants in the trade have made a mission out of lying about their participation in this the greatest of all human tragedies. In the last twenty years the academic interpreters of the Atlantic slave trade have been pointing their fingers at the African participants, as though the trade could not have existed without them. Any honest researcher, familiar with the documents, knows that the role of the African was minor in comparison to that of the European and the Arab. The Atlantic slave trade was a three-continent industry that affected a revolution in shipping, in economics and in world trade. Africans did not have this kind of connection at this juncture in history; and, besides, the slave trade was mainly a European and an Arab business. I do not, in any way, intend to free Africans of any guilt for their participation in this trade -- their involvement was tragic, misguided and not without significance, but the slave trade would have occurred whether the African participated or not. The task before the Africans both at home and abroad is to restore to their memory what slavery and colonialism made them forget. Africa is our center of gravity, our cultural and spiritual mother and father, our beating heart, no matter where we live on the face of this earth. Because, when you take a people out of a cultural container of their own creation, and put them into a new kind of cultural chemistry -- alien to their being -- they take on the traits of the new cultural incubator, even if it was not better than what they had. The black man, in this new container, imitates the European man, who basically dislikes women. This imitation of men, who basically feel superior to women, and men who -- at the same time are afraid of women -- and who deem that women should be controlled and made subordinate, produces a type of man who has lost much of what made for the long-enduring African cultures. “...to be black and beautiful means nothing in this world unless we are black and powerful.” Some Axioms of Nana John Henrik Clarke Education for a new reality in the African world must be an education that enables the African to handle all of the wealth producing resources of Africa, an education that enables the African to manage and market these resources and an education that enables him or her to prepare the generations still to come to do the same thing. A large number of African children should be chosen at birth and trained toward these ends and all education should be toward the total sovereignty of African people. In a revolution youve got no friends and youve got no relatives. Youve got the people on your side and the ones not on your side. If blood dont see fit to come on your side, then shame on blood. Thats what it means to be in a revolution. “...history is a clock that tells a people their historical time of day. It is a compass that people use to locate themselves on the map of human geography. A people’s history tells a people where they have been and what they have been, where they are, and what they are. More importantly, a proper understanding of history tells a people what they still must be and where they still must go.” We came out of a society that did not write out agreements. If we said something verbally, our mouth was sweet. That meant we could be trusted, and we didnt have to write it into law. If anybody sees you crating a pattern, they know its yours. You dont have to copyright the pattern because nobodys going to steal it. Once more we see honor and obligation running through the totality of our society and the totality of ourselves. “We have a conflict within ourselves about how to use culture as an instrument of liberation. If we had confidence in our culture, the second rate cultures of other people would not fascinate us.” Each generation must assume the responsibility of securing their manhood, their womanhood, the definition of their being on earth that in the final analysis is nationhood. One of the sadder aspects of the plight of African people is that there are too many times when they search for an ideology for their salvation without first looking among themselves. Too many times their ideology is borrowed from their former slave masters and is not applicable to their case....The ideas that were dreamed and created in Europe by Europeans were created to maintain European power and domination. These ideas are not applicable to our case. Therefore, in the search for an ideology we need to be original and creative, and we need to recognize the fact that powerful people never educate powerless people in how to take their power away from them. Therefore an ideology for our salvation will have to be created by us to suit our case, and we need not be apologetic about it. Remember, nearly everybody we ever befriended has turned on us. People never return our favors. I only debate with my equals; all others I teach. The quality and nature of the struggle waged in this country by black people must be viewed in a historical context. First, it must be recognized that we were brought here against out will, thereby making us, en masse, political prisoners. I think that the greatest change is going to have to be with each one of you and your greatest memorial to those who have died in the Middle Passage will be what each individual one of you does to bring revolutionary change to yourself and your community. If God chooses one people over another people, then God is a bigot. There is no way to understand world history without an understanding of African history. If you expect the present day school system to give history to you, you are dreaming. This, we have to do ourselves. The Chinese didnt go out in the world and beg people to teach Chinese studies or let them teach Chinese studies. The Japanese didnt do that either. People dont beg other people to restore their history; they do it themselves. Most human behavior is controlled by images. Image is a factor in how people look at themselves and what they use to reflect themselves. The control of images is a major factor in world power. When a people redefine themselves, they seek new directions and they are not satisfied until they become their own masters. ...just recently the cause of Blacks was linked with the cause of gays. The ship brought no gays. They brought all men with their manhood, and women with their womanhood, and men who knew what to do with their manhood with no confusion. When Nature or God, or whoever you want to call it, designed man and woman, he purposefully designed them to go together. He did not design man to romance man. By design heres not only a perfect fit with the lady, it is a glorious fit. It is something that should be approached with a certain degree of sacredness in its own time and in its own place. This is why you cannot compare the African attitude with the European attitude; they are coming from different cultural points of view. The European living in varying climates and the Arab living in the sand made different uses of the female and developed a different attitude toward the female. Taken out of the African environment and placed in the European environment, you may develop the same traits and habits of the European without knowing that many of these traits are about as un-African as they can be. When people move you out of history, theyre trying to oppress you and to make you think that you need to be oppressed....you cannot consciously oppress a consciously historical people because a consciously historical people would not let it happen. Because our memories are short and we have not, creatively, connected history into an instrument of our Liberation most of us do not know that there was no ideology in the world until we created one. Therefore our search for an ideology is a search for our lost values, culturally, politically and socially. “We are following a people who do not know where they are going.” Could part of this dilemma be that some of us have been slaves so long that we are now afraid to become our own masters? If we are going to be masters of our destiny, we must be masters of the ideas that influence that destiny. If you realized how much you meant to the world, and how much has been extracted from you in order to make the world, you would walk out of oppression. You wouldnt even have to fight to walk out of it; youd just walk out of it....You would realize your own definition of yourself. Do your best work. In Africa..., the womans place was not only with her family; she often ruled nations with unquestionable authority. Many African women were great militarists, and on occasion led their armies in battle. The Africans had produced a civilization where men were secure enough to let women advance as far as their talent, royal lineage and prerogatives would take them. You study what we need. “We have not yet called Africa our holy land.” People rise and fall within the context of the nation institution. When they loose the ability to master and control the nation institution, they loose their freedom. The final interpretation of African History is the responsibility of scholars of African descent. While Christopher Columbus still prevails as a major hero to the Western world, sometime in the not too distant future, if African and Indian scholars who are descendants of those who were murdered, start writing books about the opening-up of the New World, and start using new and old documents, especially the work of Bartholomew de las Casas, Christopher Columbus will emerge as one of the great villains of human history, which, indeed, he was. When this revelation becomes apparent to most of the world, I still think there will be a need for Columbus Day but it will be a justifiable day of mourning for the millions of Africans and so-called Indians who died to accommodate the spread of European control over the Americas and Caribbean Islands. Nat Turner had an understanding of power in his day superior to any understanding reflected by the Black radicals and revolutionary pretenders of today....Nat Turners revolt had a message for his day and a far greater message for our day. That message in part is that no people should ever forget or forgive slavery and humiliation. The total dehumanization is what has to be looked at. All history is a current event and everything that has ever happened continues to happen until we learn to correct it. We must see our young people as the seeds of tomorrows harvest. If we lose them we will lose the future. When people decide who they are, they also decide what they have to do about their condition. First, they look backward in order to look forward; then try to find out how they were lost from history in the first place. Your mission is to remember and to teach your children so that they can remember it. Contrary to popular belief, Cleopatra did not commit suicide over the loss of Mark Antony. Her great love was Egypt. She was a shrewd politician and an Egyptian nationalist. She committed suicide when she lost control of Egypt. If someone else has to decide the rules of your existence, you are a prisoner to the person who made the decision. If you are peaceful and give everybody in the world a guarantee that you are going to be peaceful and not hurt anybody, theres nothing you can be in this kind of world but a slave. You cannot fight to become a part of the apparatus of your slave master. If you do, you will re-enslave yourself. Your job is to destroy that apparatus. The genius of the Europeans is that they have a talent for draining diseases. They have always drained their political sores on the lands of other people. They have the talent for recovering their internal losses by external extraction from people who had nothing to do with the crimes committed against them. Powerful people never educate the victims of their power in how to take their power away from them...The ideology of our former slave masters cannot save us. We will not be truly liberated until we are the main instruments of our liberation. The liberation that I am mainly concerned with here is the liberation of our minds from being dependent on other peoples to do our thinking.” ...the egos of most white Americans are so bloated that they cannot conceive of a black man rejecting them. ... freedom is not free. Freedom is something you take with your own hands. You maintain it with your own hands. Freedom is not handed down from one generation to another. Each generation must assume the responsibility of securing their manhood, their womanhood, the definition of their being on earth that in the final analysis is nationhood. When you realize how unworthy your master is, youll no longer serve him. Heritage is how a people have used their talent to create a history that gives them memories that they can respect and which they can use to command the respect of other people. The ultimate purpose of heritage and heritage teaching is to use a peoples talent to develop an awareness and pride in themselves so that they can become a better instrument for living together with other people. This sense of identity is the stimulation for peoples honest and creative efforts. A peoples relationship to their heritage is the same as the relationship of a child to its mother. There is no way to move any people from a lower to a higher position unless they are willing to accept some form of collective discipline. We are veterans at making alliances with people who betray us, and the only reason that they betray us is that we do not control the apparatus of the alliances nor do we punish people who betray us. The colonizing of history is equal to the crime of slavery, because one crime relates to the other. What Ive been pointing to is that if theres going to be a world revolution among Afrikan people we have to locate Afrikan people and connect with Afrikan people. No matter what ourselves and what island we came from or what part of Georgia or Alabama, we can still identify with these regions. But the overall identification is with Afrika and with Afrikan people wherever they are on the face of this Earth. We have a lot of scholars, writers and politicians doing more talking than writing and more talking than acting. We have enough actors. We have enough people to talk about us and to beg. We now need people who understand what real liberation is all about and who will act to make positive change for black people happen. The aftermath of the slave trade might be worse than the trade itself mainly because the major participants in the trade have made a mission out of lying about their participation in this the greatest of all human tragedies. In the last twenty years the academic interpreters of the Atlantic slave trade have been pointing their fingers at the African participants, as though the trade could not have existed without them. Any honest researcher, familiar with the documents, knows that the role of the African was minor in comparison to that of the European and the Arab. The Atlantic slave trade was a three-continent industry that affected a revolution in shipping, in economics and in world trade. Africans did not have this kind of connection at this juncture in history; and, besides, the slave trade was mainly a European and an Arab business. I do not, in any way, intend to free Africans of any guilt for their participation in this trade -- their involvement was tragic, misguided and not without significance, but the slave trade would have occurred whether the African participated or not. The task before the Africans both at home and abroad is to restore to their memory what slavery and colonialism made them forget. Africa is our center of gravity, our cultural and spiritual mother and father, our beating heart, no matter where we live on the face of this earth. Because, when you take a people out of a cultural container of their own creation, and put them into a new kind of cultural chemistry -- alien to their being -- they take on the traits of the new cultural incubator, even if it was not better than what they had. The black man, in this new container, imitates the European man, who basically dislikes women. This imitation of men, who basically feel superior to women, and men who -- at the same time are afraid of women -- and who deem that women should be controlled and made subordinate, produces a type of man who has lost much of what made for the long-enduring African cultures. “...to be black and beautiful means nothing in this world unless we are black and powerful.”
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 16:40:14 +0000
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