Marcus Garvey and Those Who Know

The supreme visionary Marcus Garvey emphatically urged Afrikan souls to know themselves. This imperative requires self-determined effort on the part of Afrikan souls, each to the next. Through his richly endowed programmes of learning, his profound words of wisdom and a plethora of his other superlative deeds, this great hero impressed upon the Afrikan world to fulfil the age-old Afrikan spiritual-culturally rooted responsibility - know thyself! In poetic utterance entitled, ‘Those Who Know’, Marcus Garvey eloquently shares the importance of knowingness thus:

“You may not know, and that is all
That causes you to fail in life;
All men should know, and thus not fall
The victims of the heartless strife.
Know what? Know what is right and what is wrong.
Know just the things that daily count,
That go to make all life a song,
And cause the wise to climb the mount.

To make man know, is task, indeed,
For some are prone to waste all time:
It’s only few who see the need
To probe and probe, then climb and climb,
The midnight light, the daily grind,
Are tasks that count for real success
In life of those not left behind,
Whom Nature chooses then to bless.

The failing men you meet each day,
Who curse their fate, and damn the rest,
Are just the sleeping ones who play
While others work to reach the best,
All life must be a useful plan,
That calls for daily, serious work -
The work that wrings the best from man -
The work that cowards often shirk.

All honour to the men who know,
By seeking after Nature’s truth:
In wisdom they shall ever grow,
While others hum the awful ‘blues’
Go now and search for what there is -
The knowledge of the Universe -
Make it yours, as the other, his,
And be as good, but not the worse”.

Afrikan souls have before them the exceptional efforts and example of the great Marcus Garvey from which they can critically examine themselves with the honesty and reckoning that only each person soul can engage in. There is much work to do for the imperative mission of Afrikan ascension. Yet, void of the self-determined engagement in the necessary independent Afrikan-centred learning that informs Afrikan souls of their own experience in the world from their own worldview, efforts (even well-intentioned) can yield less-than outcomes (at best). Whether results are ‘flash-in-the-pan’ or ingulfed in alien contaminants of ill, the deficit in lack of self-knowingness surely cannot be left neglected to fester.      

The inspiration and wisdom guidance of the great Marcus Garvey is surely mission-compelling for Afrikans worldwide. Here, the imperative thrust of independent learning can be energised throughout the levels of the self: