The African Renaissance: The Greatest Story Never Told Part 1

Aya - symbol of endurance and resourcefulness

  

In Destruction of Black Civilization the author,  Chancellor Williams, discusses the economic, social, political, and environmental factors leading up to the destruction of the ancient civilizations that our African ancestors had established. In short, environmental and political issues (ie. soil becoming  unfavorable for farming, Arab, Asian, and European invasions, etc.) caused the inhabitants of these established societies to migrate.

  As the people became further engulfed in the nomadic life these large groups of people began to splinter off into smaller groups to the point that each group had its own spoken language, customs, and territory. After some time, few of them realized they had once come from the same civilizations. Over the generations the old written languages were forgotten; they had little time to develop written languages as they were always on the move. Eventually, some groups would begin to conquer another, or they would willfully combine to form larger groups. Some of these large groups would often settled to establish new civilized societies, while others continued their nomadic lifestyle (and began to splinter again as a result).

  Once nation in particular was Kuba. Kuba was a nation located in central Africa, southeast of the Congo. The nation was founded as the result of alliances between the Bushoong tribe and 17 other smaller tribes. Between 1475 and 1630, Kuba developed a democratic republic state, and  which included a king(comparable to the president) and councils of Elders and chiefs representing their respective tribes and clans(families). The tribes within themselves were also democratic. The idea of Kuba being a melting pot of cultures would put the US to shame. Individual tribes were praised if their group excelled in a particular area with techniques or customs that were unique to that tribe. These customs would become adopted as part of the mainstream Kuban culture. Although the Bushoong tribe made up roughly 80% of the population each group was also equally represented under the government. There were a type of checks and balances that prevented any tribe from having the advantage of a "tyranny of the majority". 

  One of the greatest achievements of Kuba was its economic revolution. This revolution was started by Shyaam the Great who became king of Kuba around 1630. Before Shyaam Kuba's Economy was on the level of subsistence, the nation only produced what it needed in terms of goods. Whereas previous kings(and queens) had focused on conquering land, Shyaam turned the national focus inward to improve the economy. Shyaam set the momentum that led to the success of his successors in establishing Kuba as the most advanced African nation of the time.

  The people of Kuba began to experiment with a larger variety of crops. Many of these crops had been grown in the territories of respective tribes and were now being grown on a national level, being grown in different areas of the nation. New and more efficient methods of production for crafts and tools were developed. Better yields of crops and higher production and new styles for the arts and crafts led to surplus production, which opened the door for national and foreign trade. Caravans began to form. Except for agriculture, masters of every trade began to form guilds. Farming was common, everyone farmed the land in addition to their own professional trade. Although agriculture was important, more emphasis was placed jon the professional trades since they were what strengthened the national economy.

  One of the most interesting, and maybe the most important, fact about this renaissance is that it occurred exclusively in Africa. For Africans, by Africans. Although the Europeans and Arabs had gradually conquered the coastline surrounding Kuba and the rest of central Africa, the people of Kuba had never had any contact with any other races. Their nomadic ancestors who had adopted the nomadic lifestyle before settling in the 1470s were the last to come in contact with Arabs or Europeans. The whites would not come in contact with Kuba until the 1800s. By then, Kuba had since been on a gradual decline from its revolutionary spurt of political, cultural, and economic development of the1630s.

A history lesson for those who think the Africans were better off being conquered and enslaved... Part 2 will discuss the problems the Kubans faced that eventually led to the downfall of the civilization.

Reflections on the "Conscious" Community

After spending years reading, watching videos, dictating quotes, journal entries, and anything else you can think of to learn about our past and present struggles as Black people, our freedom fighters, historical figures, etc. I really thought I knew something. Knowing that I educated myself about people important to the black community, I developed somewhat of a superiority complex. 

Developing a superiority complex is the first step (or symptom maybe?) to becoming out of touch with your people and community. Despite all of this knowledge I had and my pipe dreams of starting a Spook Who Sat By the Door -like revolution in Yourtown, USA, none of that was my reality. There were no mass protests, press conferences, riots, no (productive) debates with other "intellectuals" on the Black struggle, no turning your average street thugs/gangs into revolutionary freedom fighters or organizations. It was just me going to school and working, searching books and the internet for answers to questions, finding other pieces to the puzzle and putting them together. Looking back now I see that my pipe dreams were reflections of the times and lives of the men and women I had studied and looked up to: Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton, Fred Hampton, Mumia abu-Jamal, the Black Panther Party(as a whole), Frederick Douglass, Tupac Shakur, and countless others. This is how my worldview was shaped.

Over the next couple of years I would learn a lot of lessons. (Since I'm still in college, and I'm still learning, I'll just put a couple of them up). When I finished my freshman year in college, I was still an intellectual, but at the same time a loner, broke, and dependent on family. Now remember, I had a superiority complex because I knew XYZ black revolutionary figure, or concept, or had XYZ revolutionary pipe dream. There would be times when I would stop and think about how different family members or other people in general didn't know what I knew, but still had cars, their own homes, etc. When I eventually came to the point  that I had spend enough time under a rock learning and studying the struggle, it was time to come out of my shell and socialize, reach out and teach the other students and members of the community, family, etc. everything I had learned. (As one of my professors put it "Man, the path you're taking is a tough road to hoe. Black folks are going to break your heart.") I socialized more and built up my network of associates (online and locally), most of us only having a love of weed in common (that's a whole different blog). Eventually I developed the motivation to seek out ways of becoming active in the Prairie View (I'm a student at Prairie View A & M University) community. 

Through socializing, and (attempts at) organizing I learned that 1) Having a revoluionary mindset won't automatically make other black people like you, 2) Even the people who cheer you on when discussing revolutionary ideas won't always help you when you are ready to act, 3) Not all black people are trying to hear "that black power stuff", and 4) Not everybody doing good in school and working (whether working hard or smart) is selling out. So what did I learn and where does that leave us?

People in the "conscious" community really lose touch with the people they're supposed to be "saving, educating, liberating, etc." when they get superiority complexes. Nobody can help anyone that they see as "below" them, or don't understand (which comes from being out of touch). The thing that people in the "conscious" community need to realize is that nobody is going to ask for help from someone who A) isn't going to (or can't) put money in their pockets, and/or B) Talks down on them. Especially not from someone who fits category A and B at the same time. Really, these are lessons that I had to learn myself. For those just becoming "conscious" and learning about the people, places, and ideas, if you want to actually make progress, you will need to learn these lessons, too.

Even the Black liberation movement involves economics, and if they (xyz revolutionary black organization) aren't talking about getting money (in whatever form of currency they want) in people's pockets or resources (so that we can survive without having to live on the streets waiting for xyz government/society to say "o we give up, black people are free") in some shape or form, then they might as well be compared to a church, selling hope. How revolutionary can someone be if they can yell "black power, fuck white people" all day long at the rallies and protests, but have to ask for gas money to get home?(speaking from experience) Or (even worse) the people/organizations who go to white people, or the police, to support those same organizations that are saying "fuck white people, black power"?

The "average" black population is living in a way that we understand and perceive individual phenomenon more than group phenomenon (going back to what Stokely Carmichael was talking about in BlackPower). It's not that the "average" black people "love" white people that much. They don't love white people any more than they "hate" their own. They're just going where the money is - legally or illegally, inside or outside their own communities - because in order to survive (which is the purpose of any revolutionary struggle, according to Che) until you are able to put yourself in a position to thrive (independently), you have to be able to realistically function in the current society. If not, you will get locked up or killed (by "them" or your own), because if you can't function properly, then you have to live off the people who can. Stopping that pattern is what the revolution is supposed to be about.

 And "conscious" people can say "getting money" is a part of that "imperialist pie" all you want, but even after the revolution there's going to have to be some type of currency, with some type of practical economic structure, with some type of system to govern/maintain it, outside of what someone dreamed up in a utopian dream world after the revolution. And that economic structure has to be set up to where everybody has a part of it's fruits, or has the potential to have a part of it, and the necessary tools to put themselves in the position to get a part of it. If not, that "dream world after the revolution" won't last long. Period.