| |
|
Books on Pan-Africa
How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa /
Walter Rodney Speaks /
Capitalism and Slavery /
How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America
Africa's Discovery of Europe /
Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World
How
To Stop The Killing in the Pan African Hood
By
Marvin X
"The
reactionaries will never put down their butcher knives,
they will never turn into Buddha heads."Mao
We
are talking about a condition in the hearts of men, an evil sore
festering and stinking like rotten meat, to use that Langston
Hughes metaphor. It is a spiritual disease more prevalent than
HIV, for it consumes whole countries, not only Pan Africa, but it
may be said to originate in Europe because lying and murder is the
great theme of this culture, and Africa and Africans throughout
the Diaspora are victimized and suffer this malady equally with
their colonial Mother. See how Europe butchered the butcher's sons
in Iraq, or is this the democratic way of life she is bringing to
the sand nigguhs?
The problem is how to throw off the vestiges of colonialism to
become the New Man and New Woman. Of course, we must first
recognize how sick colonialism has made us throughout Pan Africa.
Somehow we must bow down and ask forgiveness of our Higher Power,
the ancestors, the living and the yet unborn. There must be a
cleansing ritual performed until the mud and slime of Western
culture is purged from our minds, bodies and souls.
The Western gods must be destroyed, crushed to the earth and
stomped into eternity, for they have blessed us with ignorance,
superstition, greed, lust and pure evil, allowing us to become
worse than beasts in the field, committing the worse atrocities,
yea, even worse than all the teaching of our colonial masters.
No doubt Africa is paying for the great sin of sending her sons
and daughters into slavery.
Has Africa asked forgiveness of herself, yet she wails for apology
from the slave master's children. Has she given reparations to her
descendants lost in the wilderness of North America? Has she ever
sent a symbolic ship or plane to bring them home? So Pan Africa
lives a slow death because she allows corrupt, boastful, arrogant
leaders to control her nations, her leaders shelter each
other, covering their multiple sins, protecting themselves from
people's justice who would rightfully hang them like Mussolini and
his wife.
Like jack in the box, Pan Africa must jump out of her iniquities,
she must call forth the divine energy within the bowels of her
soul and step into the New Day of light, breath and health. She
cannot allow her children to devour her from coast to coast, sea
to sea, from America to Africa, but children only mock the
behavior of adults, so we cannot blame them, children are
children, so adults must step to the front of the line, no matter
how busy they are doing nothing, for they are surely doing nothing
if the village is in chaos, security being the top priority of
civilization.
Everyone must become the central command, every man and woman must
be about the business of teaching new values, new ways of thinking
and acting that are not harmful to the human soul and the human
condition. The world is so full of wisdom it escapes us because
our quest is for the trivial, the low things of life, not the
things in the upper room, but those in the basement, in the gutter
of our minds and hearts, that is were we dwell, that is our focus
and this is why we suffer. Kobe gives his wife a four million
dollar rock, but will it placate her soul, will material things
correct a spiritual problem of faith and trust?
The West has a sordid history buying people as Pan Africa can
attest, but everyone is not for sale, those of integrity will jump
ship, will eat the whip and the gun, for persecution is worse than
slaughter, the Qur'an teaches.
No, physical weapons cannot solve the problem. Look at Israel, she
has the all the modern weapons but she cannot defeat the spirit of
a people determined to be free. So Pan Africa's children can and
must be disarmed by a new consciousness. Even Fidel Castro has
said the new weapon is consciousness! Like Johnny Appleseed, we
must go about spreading consciousness, teaching unconditional love
and forgiveness, sharing knowledge and wealth with the poor and
ignorant, the brokenhearted and oppressed. I am not trying to be
sentimental, but we can and must flip the script as they say in
the hood.
Again,
like Jack, we must jump out the box of mental and physical
oppression by taking a new look at reality, by stopping a moment
to wonder at the pleasure in the sun, the trees, the sea and
mountains, the glory of being alive each moment to share human
love, being grateful we have a moment on this earth to whisper
truth to children that they may rise and be a pleasure to the
ancestors watching from everywhere. Yes, we must transcend block
man and block woman, the block within ourselves even, and reach
forth into the realm of new possibilities, not allowing evil and
her brothers and sisters to control the air and sun that comes
each day blessing us with another moment to walk in the light,
escaping the darkness of ignorance, greed and lust and violence.
Black men, go into the hood and take the guns from your sons, yes
the sons you abandoned, neglected and rejected, the sons who look
like you although you deny this, the sons who walk with sad
hearts, hardened because they long for you, for your love and
guidance, for your wisdom and strength, after all, Mama did all
she could to raise her manchild in the promised land.
*
* * * *
 |
A Response to "Killing in
the Pan Africa Hood"
By Rudolph Lewis
|
|
|
Marvin, there is great wisdom that should be heeded in your
essay "How To Stop The Killing in the Pan African Hood."
I am aware that a new set of values (though possessed by our
enslaved ancestors but now abandoned under the "new world
order") and a new perspective of our place in the world, of
our past and future are earnestly needed in these dire times.
The most important of these new perspectives is couched in your
paragraph that reads as follows:
|
Has Africa
asked forgiveness of herself, yet she wails for apology
from the slave masters' children. Has she given
reparations to her descendants lost in the wilderness of
North America? Has she ever sent a symbolic ship or plane
to bring them home? So Pan Africa lives a slow death
because she allows corrupt, boastful, arrogant leaders to
control her nations, her leaders shelter each other,
covering their multiple sins, protecting themselves from
people's justice who would rightfully hang them like
Mussolini and his wife. |
In short, you suggest our critical sword should have a double
edgethat is, the slave trade
involved African nations and European
nations collaborating for the purposes of wealth and power. They
got rid of their "niggertrash." Many of those
descendants of the tribal kings and chiefs who sold millions of
slaves still play significant roles in the politics of today's
African nations. And they will sell us again and their people
again in the 21st century, if the World Bank and other
internationalist (globalist), corporatist agencies offer the right
price. (Check out Paul Kingsnorth's essay on South Africa and the
ANC A
Shattered Dream.)
In the contest for wealth and power, "black" and
"white," however,
are not real distinctions but illusions, a means for escapism or
sidetracking those who wish to do the "good." I know
"evil" has become a popular theme in the discussion of
international politics and the resistance to corporate imperialism,
especially from the bully pulpit of the presidency. So-called
righteous men love to stand behind such symbolic bulwarks. I hope we do not
become agents of such trite rhetoricit indeed will
lead us astray. It is necessary that we keep on the straight and
narrow and keep both edges of our sword whetted sharp.
At no time must we sink back into mythologizing the world for
the sake of political convenience, to hear merely the rhythm of
our own voices. Beneath most Pan-African
rhetoric (from the 19th century to the present), there is this
underlying notion of Africa as paradise into which Satan (the
white man) introduced evil. I recommend strongly that all Pan-Africanists
and sympathizers and all other petty-bourgeois,
pseudo-revolutionaries read the Malian Yambo Olouloguem's novel
Bound
to Violence. Or any non-romantic account of
Africa before European trade began. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall
Apart will provide some evidence even in the "wholeness" of
tribal life, all was not well. Even though there was a sense of
justice, and right and wrong. There were some practices or acts
that were just horrid, unnecessary, and "evil."
If true be told, there was more evil in Africa than one could shake a stick at.
The process of empire building in Africa by Africans
themselves and the perennial struggles for power and the retention
of power included the wholesale slaughter of tribes (genocide),
butchery, debauchery of every sort (religious, political and
social), cannibalism, incest, and so onall these acts of evil
existed before modern Europe stepped onto the soil of Africa or
worked out its first deal for a cargo of slaves. The
emperors, kings and queens, and chiefsto
whom we have become
so inured (and want to imitate by dress, manners, and religion)did not achieve those aristocratic titles by their sweetness and
benevolence but by the same means we are familiar with today in
those who strive to rule and conquer. That is, they did it the
old-fashioned wayby violence, exploitation, and oppression..
The aberrations we see in Africa and at home are not new. This
violence for wealth and power is just as old as the first time one
brother killed another for his wife or his ass. This contest
for dominance has always been bloody and this violence and evil were
not invented by Europe or whites. We must do away with this myththe
white man alone as incarnate Devil.
Otherwise, in a perverse way, we make Africans less than humanwe make them into
externally corrupted angels.
There is no sanctity in having a black skin or in Africanity. This type of mythologizing gives our leaders too much
credit and too much room for collaboration with corporate power
and a means of duping the masses of the poor and the black
working classes. It is no longer sustainable that we ask or
recommend that the masses of "Pan-Africa" to live vicariously
by distant observation and/or proximity to power and wealth. That
an elite should live in comfort and security while the great
masses attend them hand and foot with all their hearts and souls
is no longer acceptable if we truly have egalitarian goals for our
society. .
That kind of barbaric nobility is no longer proper in a
civilized world in which democracy and human rights have been
given revitalized meanings in which every man is a king and queen,
or at least be acknowledged with that kind of respect, integrity,
and dignity.
Our critical sword should not only land on the heads of the
great aberrations of societythe likes of a Idi Amin, a Mobutu,
a Bokassa, or a Sgt. Doe or a Charles Taylor, but also those
respectable heads of state like Mbeki, Obasanjo, and the
other African leaders who smilingly welcomed Bush to Africa
and are ever-ready to make their deals with globalization. Such
African leaders with such narrow interests sold our ancestors into
the Americas.
And not only those African leaders there, but also here at
home, we should do some swinging at our black elected
and appointed officials (city councilmen, legislators,
cabinet secretaries), yes and also corporate and ecclesiastical
functionaries, and other notable heads, such as the leaders
of civil rights organizations like the NACCP, whose board is
ruled by corporate executives or such flunkies and running dogs.
They too must be made to pay for their sins of neglect and moral
blindness.
If we lapse into the anti-white, anti-American, anti-Western
rhetoric, we will sorely miss the point and provide more
fuel for these black elites to further misdirect the energies of
the masses of Pan-Africa along lines of escapism and support for
the status quo.
If we are to make real changes within our communities some of
our petty bourgeois aspirations must be abandoned. We can no
longer naively defend black middle-class sellout politicians and
preachers. We must recognize a real change in the face, rhetorical
aspirations, and the present corporate ties that our leaders
have established. It is fine to cite Walter Rodney's
How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa, as some Pan-Africanist Marxists
tend to do. That is well indeed. I am far from a white apologista corner in which some may want to paint me. But I do not
want to be a black apologist, either -- I was not taught that
way.
The NAACP is headquartered here in Baltimore and they just had
a conference and they had nothing to say about the 40%
unemployment rate here among black males (18-35); the high murder
rate (about 300 a year, mostly young black males); a 50% drop-out
rate from high school; neighborhoods in which only 25% of adults have
a high school diploma. Brothers and sisters are paraded to jails
like our ancestors to Goree Island!!! Whatever the justification
for their apprehension is inadequate and should cause some shame
to those who run this city and those who support the powers to bewhich here in a majority black city, means a black middle class
and those who work government jobs or receive money from corporate
elites
Damn, brother, we have grown ass
men on the corner selling single cigarettes for 35 cents a piece.
What kind of enterprise is that? And it is not just a few. Is that
any way to gain a livelihood? And our shit-head leaders are
worrying about whether Bush or democratic presidential candidates
come to their meeting. Ain't that a matter to be indignant and
upset about? But it seems we are so spiritually sick we take it as
a norm the misery and the downtrodden state of the poor (black and
white). That the oppressed are overlooked and allowed to
continue to sink into the abyss is a grand betrayal by our leaders.
Murder and mayhem is not just coming from the bottom dregs of
society. We have a general slavery and devastation in which
silence and passivity is imposed by poverty, the gun, and prisons?
With these reservations, I support heartily the
sentiments contained in your plea for earnest black work, black
renewal, and black progress.
Marvin
X has taught English, African American literature, journalism, creative
writing, drama, technical writing at various colleges and universities,
including: University of California, Berkeley and San Diego, San Francisco
State University, University of Nevada, Reno and elsewhere.
For
more writings by Marvin X, go to www.blackthinktank.com,
www.marvinx.com.In
The Crazy House Called America, essays by Marvin X, Black Bird Press,
2002, $20.00, plus $5.00 for postage and handling. Black Bird Press: 3116
38th Ave., Suite 304, Oakland, Ca 94619.
* * * *
*
update 30 July 2008 |
|
|
