Marcus Garvey and Nationhood

Of such significance to nationhood to Afrikan life that with the natural norm of abundant self-knowingness it is far beyond the realms of being a tertiary choice. It is imperative self-determined thrust that has been with the Afrikan since the earliest of times.

Throughout the recent centuries of the Maafa, there has been a barrage of alien efforts of ill to undermine or destroy Afrikan nationhood. Yet, despite this it is only Afrikan souls themselves that can lift their lives to build and secure nationhood of their own.  

The supreme visionary Marcus Garvey set out to restore the imperative thrust for Afrikan nationhood in the lives of Afrikan souls throughout the world with his magnificent organisational prowess. In his own words. Marcus Garvey with profound depth of insight eloquently expressed the following:  

“Our confused and disorganised world is now presenting another opportunity for us to organise ourselves with the supreme object of racial establishment. Racial establishment, I say, because the time is now for us to determine what we are to be in the affairs of struggling humanity. We must be a nation, we must be an Imperial whole, we must be a people standing together strong and firm, conscious of our duty and our responsibility to ourselves and to our God.

The [Afrikan] is no cast-off, it is true that within the last few centuries white men have enslaved us, and scattered millions of us in the Western world, but we are still a majority of our continent – Afrika, we are in the majority in the territories of the Caribbean, and we are a sizeable minority in the United States of America. We must now completely free our minds to think in terms of full manhood and determine to guide our own destiny”.  

As with other fundamental areas of Afrikan life, self-determined nationhood is naturally rooted in (and outwardly expressed from) core spiritual-cultural fabric. Here, the cultural value of Umoja (Unity) explicitly identifies nation in its summary meaning thus:

To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.

In addition, the spiritual-cultural formulation of ASBWOK (Afrikan Spirituality By Way Of Kwanzaa) holds nation as a level of the self. In conjunction, with the other levels of the self spiritual order, energy and focus that harmonises with the Nguzo Saba (Seven Principles) (from which the value of Umoja comes) can be pragmatically directed for the necessary attainment, maintenance and safeguarding of Afrikan nationhood.  Here, the levels of the self can be described as follows: