"Kwanza is a Black-American celebration based on Agricultural celebrations and collective principles that contribute to unity and development of our community in the United States," (Dr. Conrad Worril, Final Call, Vol.17, No.9, Dec. 23 1997, P.24).

Kwanza was reportedly created by Maulana Karenga in 1966. While its creation is attributed to Karenga, it is known that the ideas which form the basis of Kwanza were developed in a series of committee meetings over time. Other members of this committee are all faceless and nameless. Why?

Dr. Worril states that the purpose of Kwanza is to introduce Black people to new values. Among these values is Nguzo Saba which constitutes the seven principles of Blackness which, "if practiced , would give us (i.e. the Blacks in North America) a set of priorities and commitments which would enhance our human possibilities and lead to our liberation and a higher level of human life.

Another principle is Ujaama. This states that Black Americans must build and maintain their own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together. This is a collective principle.

It must be noted that one of the key features of the United States of America is the creation of false religions, false theories, false doctrines and false philosophies which they hold to be universal. It is a nation built on evil, on genocide, on killings, on murder, on theft, on the forced enslavement of African peoples. That is what underlines and underpins American culture and American values. Consequently, this evil underpins the false doctrines that emanate from the United States.

Unfortunately, it would appear that the African in America, has internalised the negative values of European American domination and have become the progenitors of false doctrines, false religions, false philosophies and false cultural and religious practices even in their claim to be returning to their African roots. KWANZA is a case in point. This was previously being celebrated as an African American holiday to replace Christmas which was seen as a European religious festival. Now, the United States government has bought Kwanza and its creator now tells us that Kwanza is a holiday for all Americans.

Kwanza is silent on and ignores the most important aspect of African culture and history. This is our belief in and worship of GOD, the Creator and Supreme being, whether as God the Father or God the Mother. It was our most ancient of ancient African ancestors who put God at the centre of our culture with the instructions to practice truth, justice and right; to feed the hungry, clothes the naked, house the homeless, and give water to the thirsty.

Any cultural celebration which ignores the foundation of our culture is non-African in scope and orientation and is either a conscious or unconscious attempt to divert us away from the path back to our culture and the system of values which underpin our glorious African culture.

The so-called Nguzo Saba or seven principles of Blackness is a mishmash, a hybrid of ideas drawn out of context from different sources. Ngugi wa Thiongo tells us that culture develops as part and parcel of the rhythm of daily and seasonal life of the community. Kwanza is contrary to nature and does the opposite. It is supposed to be a first fruits festival held in the middle of bleak midwinter. It is only in America that a first fruits or agricultural festival can be held in the middle of winter

So this hybridisation of African culture is a particularly North American phenomenon which seeks to pass itself off as a development of African culture. We are Black because we were created in the image and likeness of the black Supreme creator. Consequently, no human being can lay down principles of blackness or claim that there are precisely seven in number. This is to perpetuate a fraud, particularly on those people who are seeking to escape from European cultural oppression by returning to their African roots. Whatever Kwanza is, it is not a return to our roots in our culture.

Culture develops out of the celebration of nature, the natural time cycles associated with the precession of the equinoxes and from the daily and seasonal life of the community. Ngugi wa Thiongo gives us some examples of this. "Rites to bless the magic power of tools grew out of the practice of clearing forests, planting crops, tending and ripening, so that out of one seed buried in the ground came many seeds; out of death, life sprouted through this mediation of the human hand and the tools it held; fertility rites developed out of the mysteries of cows and goats to celebrate life oozing oozing from earth or from beneath the thighs of humans and animals; there were rituals and ceremonies to mark great family occasions, birth, circumcision, marriage and the burial of the dead. All these experiences were acted out and led to the development of drama."

With the precession of the equinoxes, the original ceremony which came to be adopted as Christmas was the celebration of the winter solstice or the birth of the son of the sun. Around December 24, the sun is at the lowest point in they sky i.e. as seen from the northern hemisphere. Then, it is said to be in a cave. When the sun rises on December 25th, it starts rising in the sky again and the hours of daylight start to become longer. Thus, it is said, that the old sun dies and a new sun is born. It is this equinoctial drama which is encapsulated in the death and resurrection of the son of God, for the old sun dies and a new sun is born. Other equinoctial festivals include the Easter and mid-summer festivals.

Among the Yorubas, there is a festival to celebrate the December solstice. This is known as the Oduduwa celebrations. In Britain, this is organised by the Egbe Isese Esin Yoruba - the root of Yoruba religion, science and cosmology. This ceremony is as old as time. It comes out of the one true religion which came out of old Ethiopia, was developed and extensively practiced in Kemet (ancient Egypt) and throughout the western Sudan, and is still alive and well in the native west African religions. It probably finds its most organised expression in IFA, the religion of the Yorubas. This religion is practiced in Brazil, Cuba, England, Nigeria, Trinidad and other Caribbean islands. Commentating on the ceremony held in 1997, Dr. Amon Saba Sakana, the Director of Karnak House said, "I read about this ceremony in the religion of the ancient Egyptians. Tonight I have seen it for the first time."

Even in America where the overwhelming majority of Blacks are poor and down trodden, the one principle which could possibly assist them, that of Ujaama or co-operative economics is not being practiced. Viewed from a great distance across the Atlantic ocean, it is difficult to discern any serious attempt ‘to build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.’ Worril quotes Malcolm X, who said, "we must be re-educated to the importance of controlling the economy in which we live by owning and operating the businesses in the community we live in and developing some industry that will employ our people...." Kwanza has been going for over thirty years and Malcolm X has been dead for over thirty years but it seems that the process of re-education is yet to begin.

The last interesting development is the promotion of Kwanza by the British government. Its propaganda arm, the BBC World Service is falsely promoting Kwanza as a cultural ceremony widespread among Blacks in Britain and promoting the Pan African Congress Movement which organises Kwanza celebrations. The PACM should be careful and re-examine what it is promoting when United States and British imperialisms are both promoting unnatural cultural ceremonies which are aimed at diverting us away from the path back to our roots in our culture.

It must be remembered, as Fanon told us, that it is around the peoples struggles that culture takes on substance. United States imperialism, through its vassals on the African continent has embarked on a campaign of terror and killings in this latest phase of its war against the Africans. Armed conflict in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo are directly sponsored by the United States. The British government is directly financing the counter revolution in Siera Leone to prop up the neo-colonial regime it installed there. The purpose is to grab Africa’s vast natural resources for U.S. and British capital while keeping the Africans impoverished. I wonder why the Africans in America are silent on this.

Is it an accident that the Reverend Jesse Jackson who espouses the North American chauvinism of his Euro-American mentors, is Clinton’s messenger boy promoting U.S. policy in Africa? It seems to me that there is a degree of inter relatedness between the U.S Government adopting and promoting Kwanza and the proxy wars the U.S. is waging in Angola and Congo. No wonder Kwanza is now being targeted to the African continent by U.S and British imperialism. So, whither Kwanza?

Prince Ntum ba Azah

January 1999

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