atus.net Blog

Firstly this post is in direct response to the Ras Jabbie of Atus.net and a comment that he made.

Repatriation:

What does it mean to you? Is Repatriation just a word that has no substance for yo like “Reparation”? Or is it solid and concrete, like the pounding of yo heart when you see that person that you truly love. Garvey spoke of in the 20’s and 30’s. I give him all the more respect for the time and the habits and tensions in our society back then (and I always silently wonder if I would have the gumption he had). Yes Garvey was great and we know it well enough. This post is simply a query. Over time the message of Garvey has taken on its own meaning for each of us what is it to you. I’ve seen the eroded an missed understood meaning for others. They think that its about having to go back to Afrika. Garvey ism does preach that, but the immensity of his message is not solely confined to a Hajj (Haj). The realism of it is that we can just up and go back to Afrika(I will get to that later on).

Part of the idea of Garvey ism is not just about traveling physically. the other and frankly the more important part of Repatriation has always been the upliftment of the negro mind state. This was the problem that he saw both in his native Jamaica and the US when he came here. “Back to Afrika” is metaphoric as well as literal. Going back to Afrika more so means going back to the mentality of the Afrika renaissance. the mentality that bore and nurtured the first and best civilizations in the world that we all know and love. And what really is that ideology that I seem so enamoured with. Well there was a common respect of fellow man, but the primary interest of the community was the upliftment of all. There were things like the Afrika constitution (a grouping of unwritten laws that all Afrikan shared, it was easy to pass on because they all came from the same place, it was also ). The unwritten had such fundamental principle ideals such as those conquered in a land so long as they remained that land was still theirs. A conquered ppl still got to practice their traditions.

Continued….

These laws protected all equally, from King to common man, and indentured servant. Yes even the indentured servant, in any community could circumvent/shorten his situation by the quality of his work, or even marrying into the family that he was made to serve. But this is not where it ends, these laws allowed for different religions in one community, they spoke of the parcelling of land, these laws were the basis for the principles of MA’AT which were the building blocks for the Commandments(for some you reading this this encapsulate your moral compass). So what does all this mean to you, nothing/everything. This is all said to illustrate how advanced we were in our infancy.

Now I spoke about getting back to a renaissance of thought. But before I go back to that I need to say this. It makes no sense, and Garvey never intended for anyone to return to Afrika, if that person didn’t have anything to offer Mother Afrika. When he says “anything to offer” he means in the instance of a skill, trade, intellectual challenge or spiritual enrichment.  Garvey although he did speak of a movement he also meant for us to look inward refocus on ourselves, many civic, and racial activist/revolutionist had blue prints which only had our best interest at heart. We are still a people deep rooted in slavery, trained to love someone more than our self, for those of you that offended good. We seem to think emancipation meant Citizenship, it doesn’t. Again if you have nothing to offer Mother Afrika then you are not wanted. can you work is not the most important question, do you want to work, is.

So why go back? For me fight in, struggling in a system that will benefit my children, than to rot in this patriarchal new empire bent on my destruction as a human being. we can make Afrika where ever we are we can seed her and make her flourish, but for that we need desire and know how, and we can never get those thinking like the white man. Unless we can cleanse ourselves of that mindset we will never get home.