History and the African liberation war

[RWalker]

In this month when we reflect on the impact of the Sharpeville and Langa massacres and the accession of the Pan-Africanist government of Ghana under Dr. Nkrumah. As you know Kwame Nkrumah consistently urged that we "study war" that is study how our enemies makes war against us and to study how we can make war against our enemies -- as Brother Malcolm taught examine how other people with similar problems straighten out their problems.

History and its allied areas is essential to this process. As Malcolm said of all the disciplines history is the most rewarding; Dr. Nkrumah clearly stated that it is only through the proper understanding of history will the people be able to liberate themselves.

However, as you know it is not just revolutionaries such as our esteemed ancestors who understand this fact. The other sides understand this also, hence their renewed drive to destroy the concept of African history among Africans in the US at the same time the educational establishment is pushing the absolute importance of history in social, political, economic and general cultural development of individuals and societies.


In his first lecture as Oxford University's Regius Professor of Modern History,
Michael Howard made the following observation: (1981, March 6)

"Professional historians must do more than address monographs to one another they must write to the interest of the laity."

"It is still believed that an understanding of the past is a necessary part of that self-awareness, that understanding of ourselves, that is the true object of a liberal education. To know the way in which our society came to be formed, to have some understanding of the conflicting forces that created it and are still at work within it, is not only an advantage in the conduct and understanding of pubic affairs: it is indispensable. No amount of technical expertise, no degree of professional competence, can ever take its place."

A blue ribbon panel convened to study the role of social science in education in the US concluded.

"TREND 1: HISTORY, HISTORY, AND MORE HISTORY"

"Every major curriculum report in recent years has called for more emphasis on history. Some argue that history is the single discipline that unites all the fields within social studies. Others point out that the humanities--including art, music, and philosophy--can also be taught through historical study.

"Instead of focusing almost completely on political, military, and diplomatic events, there is much more concern with social history--how average people lived, worked, and played. Religion, ideas, art and music, entertainment and sports are important aspects of human life and should be included in the study of any historical period..."

This blue ribbon study also discussed the essential role of geography in human history and affairs...as we know land is primary.

"TREND 2: MORE GEOGRAPHY, TOO"

"Along with history, geography has become a primary foundation of the social studies curriculum. The subject almost disappeared from the K-12 curriculum in the 1960s and 1970s, but has had an amazing resurgence in the past decade--as a separate course and integrated into history and other social studies courses. Geographers and educators have agreed upon the five themes of geography that serve as a framework for geographic understanding and illustrate the relationship between human history and the earth, between time and place. These themes are

"developing a sense of place;

"developing locational skills and understanding the significance of location;

"understanding the interaction between humans and the natural environment through time;

"understanding the reasons for and the importance of human migration; and

"understanding world regions and the interrelated impact of cultural and global interdependence.

"As history has changed to focus more on social history, geography has gone beyond mere memorization of capitals and national resources to become "human geography."
"Trends in K-12 Social Studies"
http://www.apples4theteacher.com/res...rder=0&thold=0


When we look at our history we see a glorious people and culture that have been decimated by historical systems primarily emerging from the most backwards elements of Europe, aided and abetted by the most backward elements of our own society. This elements have succeeded in completely alienation the African people from the land of Africa, land which is the basis of all wealth, the basis of human life, as food, clothing and other essential aspects of biological life are direct derivatives of land.

The modern day version of these malevolent European elements are succinctly described by Nkrumah as, "...those who preach universal brotherhood yet supervise the obliteration of thousands of innocent souls throughout the world..."

These hypocritical liars, thieves, rapists and mass murderers operate with the eager assistance of retrograde African elements such as those who were the front people for international white power, i.e., imperialist neo-colonialism, in the anti-CPP government coup in Ghana (Feb. 25, 1966)...as Nkrumah wrote depicting the links between these morally sub-humans, and their masters, "while I was away in Hanoi to effect a peaceful solution to the capitalist aggression against the freedom-loving people of North Vietnam, the Ghana Army led by insignificant and virtually unknown soldiers in collaboration with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), conspired to overthrow my government..."
(quotes from "Nkrumah On the Coup in Ghana" )

It is important to keep in mind that this was a coup that was accomplished through the deliberate destruction of the Ghanaian economy by the major western powers. In the lead up to the coup the enemy tried to kill Nkrumah more than a half a dozen times. When the traitors overthrew that government it was not just a blow to the well-being of Ghana but to all of us, as Ghana at that time was, as Malcolm said, "the fount of Pan-Africanism"...the coup was an attack on the whole African liberation movement for the very first thing these traitors did, under instructions from their masters, was to dismantle the movement training and support facilities for the various liberation movements from throughout Africa that had been funded and set up by the Nkrumah government.

As a result of the warfare conducted against us the majority of our people have been deliberately impoverished and in many cases reduced to paupers and panhandlers, leading some to embrace a beast like existence as pimps, ponces, and prostitutes.

Far too many of our people are held in prisons unjustly, murdered as both a form of macabre recreation for racists and as a well thought out tactic of repression and domination. Under current circumstances we are victimized by a deliberate program of carefully constructed program of mis-education and tormented by a sadistic regime of physical and psychological assaults every day of our lives.

This must end. And it is up to us to make it end. It is my understanding that we can only end such pain and suffering by an appropriate counter-strategy of life. In this regard it is important that we develop and assess the history of our people and culture collectively, as both revolutionary and reactionary forces understand that "communal knowledge," "communal learning" is the most effective way to combat alienation. Hence Nkrumah's call for the construction of independent groups of study and action, as did Malcolm, as did Dr. King and so forth...

As one mainstream academic source phrased it,

"Communal knowledge is most likely to overcome the deleterious affects of trauma and alienation. "

"… learning was enhanced by the use of group work when solving complex problems. In support, Tiessen and Ward (1999, p 632) state that “sharing information and communicating to coordinate activities and to collaborate in building communal knowledge� assists in the learning required to address day-to-day complexities...(and) are able to gain valuable skills and knowledge from each other by sharing thoughts and discussing outcomes. It is essential to the scheme of the analysis applied to problems and development of intervention strategies for addressing these problems..."

Cabral describes the processes and warped perspectives we have to combat in his piece on National Liberation and Culture; he also posits the proper solution, namely the re-Africanization of our brainwashed peoples. As Malcolm taught we have to unbrainwash a whole people. This was the purpose of many of Nkrumah's projects most notably the Encyclopedia and the Ideological Institute at Winneba.

Cabral wrote,

"The experience of colonial domination shows that, in the effort to perpetuate exploitation, the colonizers not only creates a system to repress the cultural life of the colonized people; he also provokes and develops the cultural alienation of a part of the population, either by so-called assimilation of indigenous people, or by creating a social gap between the indigenous elites and the popular masses. As a result of this process of dividing or of deepening the divisions in the society, it happens that a considerable part of the population, notably the urban or peasant petite bourgeoisie, assimilates the colonizer's mentality, considers itself culturally superior to its own people and ignores or looks down upon their cultural values. This situation, characteristic of the majority of colonized intellectuals, is consolidated by increases in the social privileges of the assimilated or alienated group with direct implications for the behavior of individuals in this group in relation to the liberation movement. A reconversion of minds--of mental set--is thus indispensable to the true integration of people into the liberation movement. Such reconversion--re-Africanization, in our case--may take place before the struggle, but it is completed only during the course of the struggle, through daily contact with the popular masses in the communion of sacrifice required by the struggle...

"Without minimizing the positive contribution which privileged classes may bring to the struggle, the liberation movement must, on the cultural level just as on the political level, base its action in popular culture, whatever may be the diversity of levels of cultures in the country. The cultural combat against colonial domination--the first phase of the liberation movement--can be planned efficiently only on the basis of the culture of the rural and urban working masses, including the nationalist (revolutionary) "petite bourgeoisie" who have been re-Africanized or who are ready for cultural reconversion. Whatever may be the complexity of this basic cultural panorama, the liberation movement must be capable of distinguishing within it the essential from the secondary, the positive from the negative, the progressive from the reactionary in order to characterize the master line which defines progressively a national culture.

"In order for culture to play the important role which falls to it in the framework of the liberation movement, the movement must be able to preserve the positive cultural values of every well defined social group, of every category, and to achieve the confluence of these values in the service of the struggle, giving it a new dimension--the national dimension. Confronted with such a necessity, the liberation struggle is, above all, a struggle both for the preservation and survival of the cultural values of the people and for the harmonization and development of these values within a national framework."

Let us take our responsibility seriously and do our part in our protracted liberation war. A liberation war that can only be won through the medium of a union government that represents, serves and is wholly controlled by the African people of the world.