Mwalimu Baruti's New Book: Mentacide

[Baba Ahmed]

"As Afrikan warrior scholars who have chosen to spiritually, mentally and physically confront this anti-Afrikan reality, we are at a distinct disadvantage. Often, watching Europeans being their natural unnatural selves and mentacidal Afrikans with no sense of self openly flaunting their self-hatred alongside them, is like being a passenger in a fatal auto accident, moving in slow motion, without the power of decision, unable to alter the course of what's happening, watching the wreck unfold, slowly, surely.

It is a painful vision, besieging us every waking hour of every day we stand
as warriors caught in this surreality. It leaves us bereft of justice and peace.

As long as we continue to feel we are held captive to a seemingly unstoppable march toward someone else's cold, cruel cultural vacuum, we will continue to succumb to their will. If we do not break free of their tenacious hold, we, along with those who recognize themselves as Afrikan, yet still operate in fear, will become destroyed because we will cease to exist as Afrikans.

Yet, when speaking to warriors, making these statements is like "singing to the choir." We know this way of death is unacceptable, or we would have submitted to the european onslaught long ago. We know that there is much more terror here than meets the unendarkened eye.

Our warrior spirit turns against us when we focus our attention on European's ever quickening movement toward their chaotic ancient way (even though we know it only appears as a movement because they have never left their cultural home), as if it were positively progressive, and hypnotically watch the general Afrikan population's headlong tumble toward those decadent traditions, instead of concentrating our focus on our ongoing rebellious retreat from their way.

Our misfocus sabotages our minds, clouding them against empowering possibilities.

Being able to trick us into looking at our rebellion through their eyes, through the psychopathic imagination of those we are in rebellion against, gives them a fantastic demoralizing weapon against us. The European's exaggeration and showcasing of those among us willing to play fool to their insanity can easily debilitate soldiers whose vision of our ReAfrikanization goes no farther than their own limited, individual efforts.

This mistake condemns many warriors to a life of frustrating pain and, in some cases, an eventual, self-defeated withdrawal from our defensive frontlines. Looking at the war from a defeatist angle locks one in a living nightmare of unrelenting bleakness, of immeasurable loss, of death and dishonor. Doubt drains our energy.

Some of these tortured warriors, misguidedly fixated on what appears to them as an inescapable defeat, find salvation in reconfigured spiritual systems that help guide them away from the battlefields filled with bodies left broken and bloody in the predators' wake. Some even try to sell what little soul they have left by begging for their enemy's forgiveness and whatever privilege that remains on the other side of what few bridges they have not
burned away in earnest rebellion. Others simply disappear in bottles, pipes, in others' beds -- insane.

Those who remain in the struggle have no such options. There is no easy way out of a righteous war against a determined, immoral enemy. There is no retreat (except as a military tactic) when in defense of the community. We know that potential warriors are studying us. We know that elders are carefully watching. We know that the ancestors are demanding. We know that others' claims of our destruction are their fantasy, not ours. Such fictions are the wishful thinking of psychopathic predators torn by their own
inability to rest in the Sun we bask in. Common sense tells us that change can be viewed from more than one angle. And the angle with which we view events and conditions will determine whether we see our position as progressive or regressive and whether we are winning or losing. Warriors must critically assess what angle through which they perceive reality.

We must have self-interested tools to measure our movement in battle, compasses that can correctly guide us through this battlefield. But they can only work if we use them. The direction we choose to look can prove an excellent rod for measuring the progression or regression of our movement. In that following the european way unquestionably moves us toward Afrikan insanity, the more distant from it we see ourselves, the more victorious we should feel. The more deranged and repulsive their behavior and the behavior of those who follow them appears to our senses, the more clearly we see that they can never make us them. The more determined we become to be Afrikan, following the Way of our ancestors, the more we feel the need to advance toward spiritual, physical and psychic separation from Europeans. The more we see ourselves, and are seen by them, as their opposite, the more we know we are moving away from them and not just them from us. The more others try to define us as backward and out of touch with reality,
the more we know we are moving in the right direction because we know we are not standing still as they "progress" back to their traditions.

Seeing only their movement, or not seing ours, is the grand delusion that has so many revolutionaries transfixed in a tractor beam of inevitable failure. Those among us who become confused by this simply do not see that we are moving too. And that is the key to being victorious. To believe that european "gains" and "progress" signal losses for us, because our status as Afrikans is measured using a hierarchy-promoting, polarizing european ruler,
is flawed, self-defeating thinking. Rulers like this still place Europeans at the center of our thinking. They credit them with producing the greater, more important changes. Using them, we are logically forced to conclude that if one side gains the other loses. They, therefore, cannot account for gains in both directions, gains that are the natural result of irreconcilably different peoples searching for home in two very different directions. In understanding this, we must know that the more rapidly Europeans and their cultural clones move away from us, the more we know we are right bcause we are moving away from them even more rapidly.

If we are to be victorious, if we are to become empowered, self-defining, self-directed Afrikans, we have to recognize that this is not a grand, one-way, ticker-tape parade toward european cultural supremacy, with those not keeping up only falling further behind.

We are progressing too, but in an Afrikan direction. And we must know that our progression is conscious, not accidental or incidental to theirs.

Mwalimu K. Bomani Baruti
(essay taken from the forthcoming) Mentacide and other essays
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{Baba reminder: when this book is released I will have it for sale; just as I do all of his former published works; see:http://oneblackearth.tripod.com Thanks.}

[Im The Truth]

Thanks for this article from Baruti!

[Baba Ahmed]

My pleasure; thanks. I'll relay your message to Baruti... quick fast! Our's is also a "call & response" life. Let's help keep'im pointedly pouring forth useful knowledge.

[Baba Ahmed]

MENTACIDE

Self-Serving Spirituality


Our Ancestors courageously fought back against these barbaric destroyers of African life, and we their descendants have and continue to shamefully dishonor them (our African cultural sovereignty) by forming these intimate associations with the religious/belief systems and cultural structures of the enemies of our Ancestors, the enemies of African people, hence, our own enemies!

- Kobi K.K. Kambon


"I often encounter Afrikans walking around happily 'trippin,' seemingly on a natural spiritual high. Along with the others floating on cloud nine, they have placed all their energy into vibrating within a spiritual individuality so distant from everyone else that they can only see themselves. In this dazed, self-enraptured state, they are oblivious to the condition and needs of our people. In fact, carried away in this state, they seriously believe they should have no feeling of loyalty for any specific people.

Ironically, the deplorable condition of Afrikan people and our vast needs are what led them to seek out a detached, irresponsible euphoria in the first place. That condition and those needs are things that they cannot live with. For thses Afrikans, as for those who fully embraced eu-rope-an religion to escape the horror of our enslavement, the burden is too heavy to bear. They fear the death that may come if they confront those things which terriorize our people day in and day out. Yet they work ever so hard to achieve a state of mind that is for all intents and purposes, equally outside life. They spiritually strive for a mentacidal, carefree, uncluttered release from hell on Earth. They believe that only this psychologically artificial and incomplete state of mind will freee them to be their unique individual selves in a metaphysical universe where only individual realization matters.

The original confusion that led to the desperate need for escapism set in because one mind cannot have it both ways. Two competing realities held in one consciousness produce insanity. We cannot live in the white terror that surrounds and fills us and, at the same time, completely freee ourselves from this assault without losing some degree of sanity. This dualism, which we read about in W.E.B. DuBois' insightful critique of warring Afrikan and eu-rope-an spirits inhabiting one Afrikan mind, produces insanity, not simply a fleeting imbalance. The human mind is only capable of sanely working within one dominant cultural operating system. Any other culture's thoughts and behaviors are filtered through and/or sanctioned by the dominant cultural operating system. For most Afrikans, the dominant cultural operating system is the European's.

More and more of us have convinced ourselves that we can solve this problem of dualism by 'ascendint' into a fantasy that gives us a godly, individual mission of spiritual self-elevation. And, in doing so, these Afrikans have convinced themselves that european culture is no longer defining their existence or guiding the form their transformation onto higher planes takes.... The divine individualism they have so hopelessly run toward, in order to avoid the responsibilities of the realty of confronting the enemies of our children and their future, has freed them to excuse themselves from being responsible adults and members of an Afrikan community that is working toward independent group empowerment. The only pertinent problems for these divine individualists are problems of the self. There is no "we" in this spiritual escapism. There is only distorted visions of the One. And, for these spiritualists, the One is only concerned with them and their peace.

This growing group of self-chosen spirit seekers look to the stars, the zodiac, the Far East, ancient and traditional Afrikan spiritual systems, newfangled imperialist religions without sectarian names, in hope of grabbing on to that one all-encompassing belief, or melded collection of them, that will allow them to access the peace they have become too weak to fight for. Some even allow themselves to become lightheaded enough to confuse their work to become personally still with a concrete struggle for Afrikan empowerment.

Many, in fear of the magnitude of the work to be done in the here and now, run to ancient, noneuropean spiritual systems in order to break away from the blatantly racist practices, trappings and memories of white supremacist religion. Running from one religion to another, looking to dodge responsibilty, they have evaded the superficial, spiritual-deadening rituals arrogantly imposed on them by aliens, but remain unable to shed their deeply internalized cultural imperatives of the people who gave them that corrupted interpretation of spirit. Most do not realize that the selfish, extremely individualistic, mind-numbing, reactive and defensive spirit they serve is only a colored substitute for european Christianity and arabian Islam. Their minds have experienced a change of liturgy, not content or loyalty. Their salvation is still individually based.

For these "chosen" people, subsisting wholly on the spiritual plane is more fantasy than actual mental elevation. For the most part, alteration of the physical being through changing one's breathing or making oneself totally relaxed, radically changes one's oxygen intake which simply gives a high that allows one to explore one's imagination. Again, being out of their physical body is preferable to the physical reality because it allows them to ignore the responsibilities of correcting this plane. Yet, if we are to lok at our ancestors' thoguth and behavior, correcting this plane is the real test that prepares one for spiritual elevation."
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ibid, pgs 101-103.

[Baba Ahmed]

Asafo

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"When you fall, don't analyze where you have fallen; analyze where you have stumbled" - Hannabal Afrik


Greetings y'all! Often we use or read or hear the term WARRIOR. And often I be wondering to meself: wonder if sista "X" and/or brutha "XY" mean the same thing as I. So I thought to introduce someone else's experienced and learned notes from his book MENTACIDE and other essays.

"To be an Asafo means to be a member of the Afrikan warrior class. It means that you have put away the thoughts and toys of this european world and are consciously, committedly, aggressively, uncompromisingly and completely employing yur Afrikan spirit, mind and body in the battle to combat the destruction of Afrikan people. It means that you know that any conversation with our enemies ended the moment they assaulted one of us. And, you know that conversation ended four thousand years ago. It means that you know that the word 'warrior' is not just a title you use to express yourself and others while you do nothing worthy of it. Being a warrior is not play. It is not a game. It is not pretend, make believe or fantasy. It is not a badge or uniform you wear to impress those you want to hold you in awe or bed.

Being an Afrikan warrior scholar, an Asafo, means that you are studying and acting on ourstory as it our children's future depended on your not repeating any of our known mistakes. It means you know that the root word in warrior is war, and being a warrior means that you willingly engage in battle to defeat anyone who acts in a warlike fashion toward your people.

People die in war. People lose their minds in war. Security, safety, possessions and, all too often, friends, disappear. People discover their weaknesses in war. They discover their strengths. Heroes and sheroes are born of war. But a warrior without a people will never be heroic. For, without a people, there is no one to name or honor you.

Warriorhood has always been the highest honor a youth could aspire to attain when his or her people were fighting for their very survival against an unrelenting and merciless enemy. Warriorhood has always been the calling of young men and women who refuse to accept their people's defeat as inevitable. We call those who embrace this calling Asafo. And Asafo have specific responsibilities and possess certain uncompromising, honorable qualities. Not just anyone can be an Asafo. It requires a special kind of Afrikan, one who can stand alone and together with us with no fear.

To begin, Asafo refuse to be at peace with anything less than the total liberation of their people. They daily affirm that 'I am an Afrikan warrior, a warrior scholar. I refuse to be at peace with anything less.' They are culturally and politically PanAfrikan nationalist. They believe that Afrikan people are Afrikan wherever we are found. In other words, the Asafo believes that he or she should unselfishly devote the same dedication and energy to the defense and empowerment of Afrikans everywhere.

And Asafo are not racist. In fact, it is clearly undrestood that she or he would never act as a racist.(1) That would be distracting and beneath these healers. There is no confusion here in definition. Their loyalty is conscious, race conscious, placing "Race First." Or, as the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey would say, Asafo are 'Race Men and 'Race Women.' They know that family is first. They know that to be pro-Black is not to anti-white unless Europeans interfere with them doing their work. Asafo are not negroes. Instead, they are the antithesis of the negro and far from the confusion of lost souls.

Asafo are also educators. They are not western teachers. They politically explain conditions so that their children, their students, will become better wwarrior scholars than they are. Teachers merely dispense another's information in order to train their students to become passive, obedient, nonthinking citizens in an alien and alienating culture and society. Asafo teach their students how to think as Afrikans.

Asafo do not separate word from deed. Leaving gtheir people without a viable, working example to guide them in freeing their minds would be outside their Afrikan reason. Asafo are workers of the first order and, therefore, leaders by example. They are doers, nationbuilders, makers of their people's way. They are always the newest vanguard.... In this respect, the Asafo is a nonintellectual because he or she practically applies his or her knowledge. They do not see war as waged in some great, distractive, endless debate. They would never validate meaningless arguments through participation. Ignorance can be corrected. Stupidity cannot. There must be a field application of tactics and strategies.

As eduators, Asafo fit information into reality. They understand the cultural ourstory which has created our people's conditions and distorted our vision. Asafo study the problem, internally and externally, not those victimized by it. Victims are studied only to assess how they can be assisted in building up their defenses against the sources of their problems. None among this vanguard identifies Afrikans as the core problem. So, whatever internal symptoms they observe are logically attributed to our 'cultural misorientation.'

....A male Asafo unconditionally respects Afrikan women. He is their defender, their lover, their divine complement. A female Asfo unconditionally respects Afrikan men. She is their defender, their lover, their divine complement. Their end is the same. No Afrikan community exists without the guard of its men and women Asafo, regardless of the division of their labors and responsibilities during war. No one can do all. War is a responsibility shared by all. Those who guard the community's exterior and those who guard the interior have the same mission -- protection. They are just doing this work in different locations.

Asafo are also entrepreneurs. They instill independence in other Arikans by finding a way to provide, regardless of circumstance.... Our enemies should not employ us. People hold loyalty to those who feed them. Therefore Asafo create meaningful employment because they also know that povery spawns antagonism among a people....

Being an Asafo is not an easy choice. But it is a choice. No one is going to beg or baby you. You must rise up because you feel a deeply spiritual reason. Because Asafo choose themselves. Obviously, it is not a decision to be taken lightly. An entire race depends on your ability to uncompromisingly be Afrikan. An entire people is depending on your unwavering courage and dedication to its survival and empowerment. We absolutely depend on your knowledge, skills and genius. So, do not choos without deep and serious forethought. We have no room for either vacillation or equivocation."
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1. Larry D. Crawford (Mwalimu K. Bomani Baruti), "Racism, Colorism and Power," in Larry D. Crawford (Mwalimu K. Bomani Baruti), negroes and other essays, Atlanta, GA: Akoben House, 2000, pp.115-141.

see: http://oneblackearth.tripod.com for all of Baruti's books.

[Moorbey]

I really liked the piece on Asafo.Thanks for the great information.

[RiverWhereTheBloodIsBorn]

I was unaware that Mwalimu had masterpeiced another divine/revolutionary message to deliver to our people. Thank you for passing this along.

[Baba Ahmed]

Originally Posted by bigdaddiej

I really liked the piece on Asafo.Thanks for the great information.

Med ase

As a relay man, I'll send this to Mwalimu Baruti... he and his family work very hard. In true Afrikan stylee, they also have two, of their many, "sons" active here: ASAFO37 and Akyeame Kwame. Like many yunguns, they won't say much about it. They too deserve some props. Drop by ASAFO37's blog: http://zizibiantoko.blogspot.com/

He can be contacted via http://www.AkobenHouse.com I'm sure he'll 'preciate get'n feedback from y'all.

Stay BlackXcellent!
Kwame

[Baba Ahmed]

Originally Posted by RiverWhereTheBloodIsBorn

I was unaware that Mwalimu had masterpeiced another divine/revolutionary message to deliver to our people. Thank you for passing this along.

Asante sana!

Read above reply by me; ditto to u.

BlackNificience is the order of the day.

Baba Ahmed

[Learn06]

Nice post Baba. Gives me more to think about and also more practices to put into action.

Learn06

[Baba Ahmed]

Asante sana Learn06. My bruthaMan stays a lot with personal developments, preparing for continued Warfares.

[Baba Ahmed]

Alaafia! This is dedicated to one of our recent members, who respectfully I've named a Senior War(rior) Correspondent. Its for all concerned to ingest. A complete essay from Mwalimu K. Bomani Baruti's latest release: MENTACIDE and other essays

Deliver the Word

My only weapon is my pen, and the frame of mind I'm in.... The things I flash on every day, they all reflect in what I say. Sly & The Family Stone

"Gifts are often buried deep, hidden by the material and emotional demands of success and others' preferences. With time, and enough distraction, they may even move beyond remembrance into oblivion. They can become concentrated in synapses that no longer fire. Yet, even in that state of petrification, sometimes a changed psychology, an improved diet, a newly discovered, incredible possibility for purpose can begin to resuscitate them. By now, we should know that 'when the student is ready, the master will appear.'

I rediscovered my gifts in quiet meditations while creating independence. The call to be free to wage war whenever, wherever and however I wanted to, against those who seek to destroy us, swept me into a new understanding of the ancestors' capacity to protect, nourish and guide my mind. The call to Akoben, the war horn, eventually opened my mind to my past. I had been kept safe from so many evil and trifling circumstances in order to fulfill a mission of which I had not the slightest inkling. Thankfully, I now know why.
But many people would not call these incidents in my life that would logically lead to my awakening as an Afrikan warrior scholar miracles because they can only imagine supernatural events in european religious terms. They see miraculous transformations as coming from external sources, not from within. But the most ancient Afrikans who began and built human civilization based on a deeply studied model of the Universe's thought and behavior tell us that we bring the miracle of awakening, whether we understand it for what it is when it comes or not. We call on the Creator and our ancestors to guide us into sanity. And what we receive is relative to our needs and relative to what we are capable of comprehending and acting on at that time. True miracles are not external. They operate at the level of self.

Once meaningful obstacles are removed and critical lessons taught, the courage to pursue a path builds on itself, strengthening the will to be true to yourself, your people, your divinity. It grows infinitely.... In searching for my Afrikan self, I learned to trust the spirit of my ancestors to locate those things in my life that so engaged my mind that all else was momentarily lost. As a child, during my parental and self-imposed quiet times, solace was found through doing certain things. As an adult, I again, found those pleasures of childhood that easily took me into myself and opened them up to the adult demands of Re-Afrikanization. In Sankofan fashion, I looked into myself, into my past, to find myself and define my future. I found myself involved in woodwork, art, writing, planting, explaining, order inner and outer space, chess, music (listening) and fighting. As an adult warrior scholar adult, born again into the gifts discovered in my childhood, I learned to make these talents work together to gain focus and secure a level of independence.
Thankfully, children's minds are wholistic. It is the dichotomizing confusion of western culture that makes us dismember and dismiss our skills and selves for others. We learn to divide and conquer ourselves for others.

For me writing is simply one expression of a collective ancestral gift. It is not simply one aspect of my Afrikan being. It is the manifestation of all of them in one particular medium - the expression of thought-provoking ideas on paper.
When i follow my gifts, reewards manifest. In woodcrafts, there is the smoothness that wood grains gain after hours of sanding, staining and buffing. In art, there is the visualization of the gatherings and interaction of Afrikans in villages and as a nation freely interacting within the freedom and limits of their own empowerment. In writing, there is the critical thinking required to express even the simplest thought well. In planting, there are the seeds known to bring dormant minds out of the concrete and into the sunshine. In explaining, there is the placing of points in squence so that sense is not hidden or made abnormal. In ordering inner and out space, there is the using of information that developed into knowledge which evolved into wisdom working with an uncorrupted imagination to educate in context. In chess, there is the incorporation of a game plan in a world of hostile pieces. In listening to music, there is the ryhthm of thughts and emotions working and playing together. And, in fighting, there is the venting of righteous rage against those who seek to destroy our ancestors, us and our children. For me, through writing, al of this becomes one mission statement.

Writing is a gift -- not to be taken lightly by warriors using it to cut deeply into and against mentacide. Whether the choice is to be one who rewrites the present into a living, ancient reality for us or one who corrects the insidious lies writtn about us by covetours others, this task should not be taken lightly. Writing is no game. It is a blunt, broad, ragged gift, only sharpened and refined by using a paper whetstone. Serious, possesssed writers recognize it as a very delicate, precious gift, a blessing that has the power to mesmerize and captivate, as well as bewilder and rule its vessel whether deep in the night, while conversing with friends or family, in rush hour, during a movie, at the store, wherever. Whenever the ancestors call you write. Carry your tools always. For the wise, it is a gift that cannot returned, but must be shared.

Warriors cannot just write. They cannot just speak with their pens as if writing a detached art. They must make their people feel their writing. The writings, in whatever form, must lead to doing, to productivity, to action. 'The job of the writer is to make revolution irresistible.' (8) Action refines words. It fulfills them.... Writing compels even more effective action by stripping away the utopian from the practical. It is a glorious cycle of an unfolding, refined self-determination. In a politicized context, energy will be political; therefore, it should be consciously political. Anything less is waste. As Manu Ampim cautions us of the same with respect to lecturing,(9) in exchange for money, ego and sex, writing is just writing. Without a dedicated, directed potency, it serves no liberating purpose. Only hedonism profits.

For those who choose to follow this calling, this can be no game. We are not playing with words. They are our weapon of choice. Words give meaning. Meaning awakens power. Poser secures life. It is a sacred gift; ancestral calling, a creitical, crucial mission, an extraordinary, life-giving task. Do not squander your gift. If it is not exercised properly, it wil atrophy.
So, Afrikan warrior writers, what are the Afrikan rules of communicating with the community? They commonsensical. You must know your audience. You must know that, compared to negroes and lost souls, it is a select few. It is quality, not quantity.that we must measure progress by. No revolution was initiated by the many. So, in knowing the mind of our select few, the question of the purpose of our revolution must be kept in mind. For they are not of the mind to wait to be revolutionary until euros outgrow their pathologies and call them to integrate with them. And they definitely are seeking to amalgamate or assimilate into any kind of whiteness. Knowing the determination of that consciousness to become more Afrikan, more knowledgeable of our enemies, we know we cannot speak to them as we would Afrikans full of fear or european. They are Asafo, too, sworn Afrikan warrior scholars. They seek only to be better prepared for battle. (Baba note: to be cont'd)[/b]

[General]

Bro. Baruti puts together good work. I have his Homosexualization and Effiminization of Afrikan Males. Very well put together.

[Baba Ahmed]

Talk with them. They will lead your research by asking questions. You must give them answers to think about. Common sense is knowledge, as valid and worthy as any other. Dealing with evil day in and day out, from nine-to-five, year after year, is knowledge. Watching their families fall apart right before their eyes in a raging plague of drugs and violence is knowledge. Have their hands tied as holding pens (processing centers) called schools track and drug their children into an alien, immoral, sex-crazed, predator-prey cultural chaos is knowledge. Waiting for some rapture because all hope is tied to relentless flight and defeat is knowledge. So do not take their yearning lightly, as if it is a virgin cup for you to fill with your education. The masses are not asses as some negro scholars are known to think and/or say.

Speak with them as the loving, dedicated servants to them that we are. Speak without fear or a concern for minds which cannot listen or comprehend because of snow blindness. 'Speak truth.' Our warriors, young and old, are apt students, eager and and able to discuss for edification, not argumentation. We are building an Afrikan nation together. We lead by example, not through proselytizing, browbeating or begging. We are not looking to recruit those who hate all in them that is Afrikan but will begrudgingly accept our brotherly regard for them as a means to gain any love.

We are neither out to enrich our pockets, nor do we aspire to any level of poverty. We are at war. We carry what is on our backs. Security is not possible for either the dominated and corrupted or dominator and corrupter in states of domination and chaos. Feelings of security soften individuals. Privilege weakens them. It tears at spiritual connection, illusorily elevating the "I" above the "we." And arrogance, however subtle or "innocent," is privilege's bedfellow.

Therefore, we know that money is not our primary objective. For money cannot, in and of itself, solve any of our problems. It's not supposed to. Money doesn't think. As Amos N. Wilson articulated so well, currency is a set of relationships between a people that facilitates the development and distribution of needed goods and service. It is the creation, cause and direction of what flows. It is not what is exchanged in that flow. Therefore, material prosperity is a tertiary concern to building family and nationbuilding. If it comes down to the personal risk involved in being Afrikan in a place where people will try to financially hurt you because of it, question whether the Creator and the ancestors have ever allowed you to do without your basic needs being met. Warriors thrive regardless of conditions. And wealth is relative. "Endless our struggle must seem to those whose vision reaches only to the end of today."(10)

In writing for family we must always have certain central questions: "What is it that they need?" "What can I say that will help them to the strength they need?" "How can I make them know that they are never alone in their self-love and searing critique of their people's destroyers?" "What will help them preserve the peace they need to be and remian at war?" They must recognize our words and knowingly nod, smile and laugh and say "teach!" because what they read is what they would say or write, if they had the time or this particular gift.

We must speak with them about tradition, about love, about family, community and nationhood, about healing and rising above the enemies without and within. Literary expression is no more than our particular contribution to an Afrikan sanity. It is no more or less than any of the other gifts it combines with to nourish our struggle.... The wording and meaning must be crystal clear. At no point should the reader become confused due to gratuitous, superfluous jargon or loquacious, esoteric irrelevancies. Do not play with their heads. Keep it simple, not simplistic. Make it readable to your mother or father or sister or brother or childhood friends.

There is, of course, no reason why you should not introduce your readers to concepts, theories and ideologies that may be important for deeper interpretations of reality. However, there must be purpose behind this introduction. It cannot merely be for the sake of higher diseducation - i.e., merely demonstrating some elitist expertise. It must serve them (their Afrikan centered intellectual needs), not your ego. Also, convoluted and overly dense sentences, as well as unnecessary complex syntax are useless for nationbuilders. They serve no practical purpose. Be succinct. Be concise. If you know it, you can explain it to anybody. But be a teacher who knows that her/his audience and students are her/his family.

Such workers' writings have divine purpose. It is to change our cultural aspiration, the way we prioritize things, so that Europeans do not become the model of what we desire to become. It must first systematically create a psychological and behavioural void in the writers' and, then, readers' being, divesting them of all that is European. Then it must fill this void with political, educational, spiritual, familial, sexual, economic, military, kwk, models fashioned in the Afrikan tradition. What it gives to fill this void must be explained for Afrikan people in such a way and in such detail that questions of what to do remain solely the domain of the nonthinker's (i.e., negro's) mentacidal rhetoric. We must be clear as to the ancestors' intent.
Without cultural context, without the writer's full immersion in Afrikan traditions, without a living Afrikan centered interpretation of others' and our realtiy, however, this is not possible.

For there is no destroying the weight of european traditions in this "literate" world without clear, practiced, conscious writing. The european's way exists and is sustain for good reason. Its makers have forged a world where it is easiest for them to be considered normal.

Afrikan warrior scholar writers must make it unbearable for us to be that kind of normal. We must stand and say what must be said. We must make instruments of writing our weapons of choice. We must turn our pens into weapons that deliver the word, clearly quietly, devastatingly."
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10. Ayi Kwei Armah, Two Thousand Seasons, Popenguine, Senegal: Per Ankh, 2000 (first published in 1973), p.303.
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Baba note: Shall we study, discuss, organize, plan work and envisioned pleased honorable Ancestors?

[Baba Ahmed]

~~~~~~~~BIG TIME BUMP~~~~~~~~~