Nubiart - Wed @ 5-7pm / Sat @ 7-9pm on Sound Radio 1503AM. Also on the web at: www.soundradio.info E-mail: afrikanquest@hotmail.com
NB: Nubiart Diary can also be read weekly at www.ligali.org and on the Afrikan Quest website.
NUBIART EDITORIAL:
Editorial Pt 1
“None of us ever must forget that Blacks were the only ones who came here [America] in chattel slave status and in chains.” - Alex Haley
On midweek Nubiart we played ‘Alex Haley Tells The Story of His Search For Roots’, parts 3&4. We picked up the narrative with Haley in Juffure. He explains what happened when he entered the village of about 70 people. He was the first Afrikan to come there from America but the people still remembered those who had been kidnapped centuries before: “Yes, we have been told by the forefathers that there are many of us from this place who are in exile in that place called America and other places.”
The griot, Kebba Kanga Fofana, aged 73, then recounted the history of the Kinte clan. With knowledge of a name, where and when their ancestor was taken from then a griot can trace an exiled Afrikan’s clan. The Kinte clan began in old Mali. The men were blacksmiths and the women were potters and weavers. A branch moved to Mauretania before a branch went to Gambia. Kunta Kinte had three brothers. The griot told how at the time the King’s soldiers came Kunta, the eldest, had gone out to chop wood and was never seen again. This confirmed Haley’s story and was accepted by the griot and interpreter.
Haley had traveled to Juffure by river but went back by land. This allowed him to understand that those who lived by the river were easily kidnapped and enslaved. Further inland it would be as a result of an attack. They were then put in coffles of enslaved Afrikans up to a mile long before making the long march to the ships. In the barrac**ns they would be washed, force-fed, medicated, examined and then branded between the shoulder blades with a hot poker.
It was only when the Afrikans were moved from the barrac**ns to the canoes to take them to the big ships that they then realised that this was no ordinary form of capture and imprisonment but something unimaginable in its horror that involved the removal from the land of their birth. Haley realised that it was a matter of chance which Afrikans were taken overseas and which never left the continent.
It was within the same hour that Haley heard the griot touch on Kunta Kinte that the last of his grandmother’s generation, Cousin Georgia, passed away as if acknowledging that the circle had been completed and she would now be watching him from the realms of the ancestors. Haley told the publishers that he wanted to write the story in a way that it was about one family but it would be a symbol story of the enslavement experience for all Afrikans.
Then Haley talked about the level of research he undertook in Britain and America to trace the ship and its landing point which he had been told was Annapolis, Maryland. He found that British soldiers, led by Colonel Charles O’Hare had gone to Gambia to guard the St James slave fort in 1767. He went to Lloyd’s of London who had access to records of slave ships. “There are more records of slave ships than one would dream. It seems inconceivable until you reflect that for 200 years ships sailed carrying cargo of slaves.”
Haley had to go through 1,023 sets of records in the Public Records Office before he came across the ship, Lord Ligonier. He then used ‘Shipping in the Port of Annapolis’ by Vaughn W Brown to find out when the ship arrived. He traveled to many other archives, crossing the Atlantic three times in 10 days. The ship had left Maryland with rum, sailed to Gravesend in England and used the proceeds to buy slaving hardware, foodstuffs and hire more crew before sailing to the coast of West Afrika.
Haley used his maritime and meteorological experience to track the ship’s journey. This also gave him access to naval officers and librarians who were able to help him with explaining how sailing ships without engines operated at that time and the places and people who had such information.
Of the 140 enslaved Afrikans taken on that ship from St James Fort, Gambia, 98 were declared on arrival at Annapolis - this was an average loss rate. The sale was advertised in the Maryland Gazette. Kunta Kinte was bought by John Waller in Virginia who later sold him to his brother, William, after his foot had been cut off.
Haley ended with this: “And then I reflected about how it seems to me that all of us, everyone of us, it does not matter who, have a stake in something that I thought to be one of the most stirring, moving dramatic, heartrending things I came upon in the study of the culture of Afrika for the book, ‘Roots’. And that was the thing that had to do with how babies were named.
“In this land that we have all heard about as heathens, savages peopling it. That in this land 200, 300, 400 years ago in any little village when a baby was born the people of the village would not see much of the father for seven days because he was occupied with going about keeping pretty much to himself, thinking up a good meaningful significant name for this infant. And bear in mind these ‘heathens’ and ’savages’ we’ve heard so much about, that these babies are the ancestors of we Black people here in the United States today.
“On the eighth day the people of the village would gather at that particular little circular mud wall home with the thatched roof and there would be a stool sitting just outside. The people brought with them, in the Mandinka culture anyway, a jaliba, a drummer, who brought a cylindrical drum called the tan-tan. And then they had another man there, the equivalent of our minister, they called him the alimamo. And the jaliba would give a roll on his drum and the people would stand rigidly at attention. A second roll on the drum and the mother who had been inside waiting for that signal now would step out and sit herself on this stool. Holding the little eight day old infant – these ‘heathens’ and ‘savages’. The third roll on the drum and the alimamo would step forth and bless the gathering because this had happened to everybody there when they were eight days of age. And then the next roll, the father would come from the bush where he was waiting somewhere, just for this signal. And now this father would walk over with every eye on him – his fellow villagers, his neighbours, his tribesmen – and he would walk over to where the mother sat holding this little eight-day-old infant. And the father now would bend and he would lift up this infant and he would turn it so that one of its ears was very close to his lips and into that tiny ear that father would whisper the name he had selected three times. And the thinking of these alleged heathens and savages in doing it this way was that the individual thus named always would be the first to know who he was.
“Those are the ancestors of us, as a people. And it seems to me that the symbolism for us all having nothing whatsoever to do with our race, whatever race we maybe, but just us people as human beings. It seems to me the potential of us and the symbol for us is contained in the second part of the baby naming ceremony. And that was that night when the father now alone would take his infant a distance away from the village. And he would hold it up so that its face, its eyes, looked up towards the firmament, the stars and the moon. And the father would speak to his infant, again the symbol for us all and our potentials, the quote: ‘Behold, the only thing greater than thyself!’”
We finished by playing ‘America (The Promised Land)’, Side 2 of ‘Roots’ by Quincy Jones.
Editorial Pt 2
“If I’m going to talk about the freedom of Afrika and if I’m going to understand our history as a people then I have to go to Afrika and actually see what’s there that I’m studying about, that our people should be involved in, in terms of their freedom and their liberation.” - Sekou Nkrumah, Chairman of the Pan-African Improvement Organisation (PAIO), Ghana
On weekend Nubiart the stories we covered on ‘Afrikan Worldview News Service’ were: ‘South London Murders Claim Fifth Victim, Nigerian Dead Named’; ‘Man Shot Dead In Hackney’; ‘Three Men Hurt In Manchester Shootings’; ‘Youth Killers Jailed For Murdering Two Afrikan Women’; ‘Former BNP Candidate In Court Over Bomb Factory’; ‘Two Gangs Of European Gun Runners Jailed’; ‘Police To ‘Re-Think’ Stop And Search Powers’; ‘Judge Tries To Have Somali Sex Offender Deported Again’; ‘Martial Law Declared In Guinea As Strikes And Deaths Grow’; 'Sudan-Chad Tension Dominates Franco-Afrikan Summit’; ‘Smugglers Leave 107 Somali-Ethiopian Migrants To Drown’; ‘73 Muslim Brotherhood Members Arrested In Egypt’; ‘Western Fears Of Radical Islamist Maghreb’; ‘Mauritanian Plane Hijacker Arrested In Canaries’; ‘Habyarimana Widow Loses Refugee Bid’; ‘US Cancels Liberia's $391m Debt’; and 'Samba Kingpin Shot Dead In Lead-Up To Rio Carnival’.
We then moved on to play the interview with Sekou Nkrumah, the People’s Committee Chairman of the Pan-African Improvement Organisation (PAIO) in Ghana. We started by looking at the genocide in Darfur and the Government of Sudan’s (GoS) belief that anybody who criticises their arming and support for the janjawid is working for the CIA and incapable of independent analysis of the situation. Sekou felt that this highlighted the contradictions in anti-imperialist work as sometimes you support neither of the government ‘sides’ in a conflict as the focus should always be on the benefit for the mass of people at a grassroots level. The Casablanca Group, which was pushing pan-Afrikanism on the Organisation of African Unity in the 1960’s, included many of the north Afrikan states with Gamal Nasser of Egypt to the fore. We returned to Sudan later on.
Sekou then gave us his background. He was born in Chicago, Illinois and attended San Diego State University graduating with a BA in Political Science. The first books that inspired his political activism were ‘Consciencism’ by Kwame Nkrumah, ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ by Walter Rodney and ‘Stolen Legacy’ by George M James. He then moved on to read about the great works and organisation of Rt Hon Marcus Mosiah Garvey and Malcolm X. “All of that welded me to a point to where I know that I have a responsibility to our people, in terms of our liberation and our freedom.”
He has helped to organise several Afrikan Liberation Day demonstrations in California, New York and at a Liberian refugee camp in Ghana. He was one of the main organisers of the anti-apartheid movement in San Diego as a student in the mid-‘80s. Sekou Nkrumah also sparked the name change of several Black Student Unions to African Student Unions in the 1980s on university campuses in the San Diego area.
He has visited several West African countries, and in 1986 was part of a student delegation that visited Burkina Faso, and held meetings with President Thomas Sankara and top government officials. He also spoke before the UN Special Commission Against Apartheid as a representative of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party and an invited guest of the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania in 1991.
Throughout the 1990s he organised annual tours to Ghana encouraging Africans in America to repatriate. He founded and was the Executive Director of the Pan-African Institute of Technology, an organisation dedicated to Pan-Africanism and building technical institutes for African youth throughout the continent in line with the blueprint of Cheikh Anta Diop. He is now building an independently-funded pan-Afrikan technical institute near Accra, the capital of Ghana.
He taught maths in New York and California schools. He organised the first Pan-African Conference for Education in Nov 2000 at Medger Evers College in Brooklyn, New York. Sekou started teaching in 1983 and saw the rise of rap music among the youths. While it started off as a radical, liberatory influence by the late-80’s with the rise of ‘pimp gangsta rap’ it had become destructive, obsessed with materialism and degenerating into a catalogue of ‘beefs’ with no uplifting message. He would work with students who showed an interest in consciousness.
Sekou is currently a writer and resident of Ghana. He has written for the Insight, a Ghanaian based newspaper, and is the author of the book ‘Repatriation and Pan-Africanism: The Suppression of Two Movements’, and soon to be released books ‘The Historical Legacy of Ghana’s Founding Father Kwame Nkrumah’, and ‘Africans Are At War: A Case Study and Historical Analysis for Revolution’. He was passing through Britain on a tour to promote the books before returning to Ghana for Independence Day. He is dedicated to the freedom of all Afrikan people and an All Afrikan Union Government.
We discussed the brain, skills, youth and care drain out of Afrika which is happening at the same time as many Afrikans in the diaspora want to return to Afrika. Last year 31,000 Afrikans crossed from the west coast mainland to the Canary Islands with 8,000 dying in the process. Sekou pointed out that over 800 million people still live in Afrika and don’t think about leaving regardless of their situation. “One of the things that I found out in moving to Afrika is that the only time people talk about coming outside Afrika is when they’re around people who were born outside of Afrika.”
However, he was scathing of the Afrikan governments who conspire with the capitalist media to portray their countries so badly by not concentrating on providing for the needs of their people: “The neo-colonialist puppets that’s in power they allow this to happen. Because rather than taking care of the needs of the people inside the country in order to have them settle themselves properly and develop the human resources inside of Afrika; in order to keep the people’s minds off neo-colonialism and how it exploits them and oppress them they allow the capitalist media to come in and fool and trick the people and make them think that’s its better on the outside than it is on the inside of Afrika. Some people buy into that and it’s true they risk their lives but for the masses of the people they know they’re not going anywhere. They’re proud, like where I’m at, they’re proud to be Ghanaians.”
Sekou also thought repatriation by diasporan Afrikans was a link that would expose the lies about how life is for Afrikans outside Afrika and the need for genuine pan-Afrikanism. He stressed the importance of Afrikans teaching the correct history and proper education to make people value what they have and want to work for the betterment of Afrika. Learning about the achievements of the Rt Hon Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Amilcar Cabral, Kwame Nkrumah, Cheikh Anta Diop, PAC leader Robert Sobukwe, Franz Fanon, Kwame Ture, Ben Bella, Gamal Nasser, Julius Nyerere, Sekou Toure, Edward Wilmot Blyden and others who have provided us with ideas and solutions. Sekou pointerd out that the UNIA was in Namibia and it was its members who set up SWAPO. “Our enemy is not going to highlight those things in their education because it works against their interests, so it’s our job!”
Sekou pointed out that Afrika is the richest real estate in the world. Despite 500 years of rampant European exploitation there is still gold, diamonds and other minerals in abundance. This is why there were two imperialist world wars fought over Afrika and Europeans still need Afrikan resources so badly that they are forcing Afrikans to move off their land. He reminded us of the need to also practice a class analysis of the issues so that we don’t get fooled by people who look like us but do not represent the interests of the mass of Afrikans.
Every Afrikan has a role to play in developing Afrika. Those who don’t want to leave the diaspora have a duty to destroy capitalism where they are as this is what is propping up the neo-colonial systems perpetuating Afrika’s misery. Sekou gave an example of what organisation in the diaspora could achieve. Afrikans in America have $600bn in wealth. If 10% of that was used to develop Afrika that would be $60bn. Adding the wealth of Afrikans in other countries would dwarf any aid coming from non-Afrikan ‘friends and foes’. He felt that even the Afrikans who cause problems in the diaspora would benefit by a trip to Afrika. “If we change their environment we can change their conditioning and their behaviour.”
Land has been set aside in many countries for those who want to return by leaders such as Haile Selassie in Ethiopia. Sekou felt it was necessary to learn an Afrikan language to enable people to understand the issues on the ground and the nuances of the interactions. This should go alongside developing projects that benefit the people on the ground and not just going there to be an exploiter.
“Afrika will humble you and if you don’t want to humble yourself then you won’t be in Afrika too long.”
On the role of Afrikan spirituality. In the diaspora picking up knowledge and practices may seem like consciousness but without knowing where that fit into the social structure can lead to problems as some practitioners may have their own difficulties with the local population.
We moved back on to the issue of Sudan which claims that it was the first Afrikan country to gain independence in the 20th Century in 1956 while most people say Ghana was first in 1957. Sekou pointed out that Ghana was the first country to get independence and push for pan-Afrikanism before the neo-colonialists removed Nkrumah in 1966. This led to a discussion about ‘The Mulatto Problem’ as raised by Chancellor Williams in his book ‘The Destruction of Black Civilisation’. Here Williams puts forward that north and east Afrika were invaded by non-Afrikans through war, trade and intermarriage leading to a lighter-skinned ruling class, including the Amharas in Ethiopia, who suppress indigenous Afrikan traditions. If this argument holds then Ethiopia, which many pan-Afrikanists consider as being independent except for the brief time of the 1936-41 Italian invasion (and the years immediately following when Britain and the UN administered it while Haile Selassie was re-establishing himself on the throne) would also have been colonised except its period of colonisation would have begun thousands of years earlier and continued into the current time. Sekou disagreed with Williams on this and didn’t feel at ease with the term ‘mulatto’. He felt that all people with Afrikan ancestry should be classed as Afrikan. He also didn’t feel that shade was a direct indicator of pan-Afrikan tendency citing Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now DRC) as an example of neo-colonialism coming in all shapes and sizes.
Sekou acknowledged the destructive behaviour of some Arabs and Arabised Afrikans in Afrika but didn’t think it wise to fight neo-colonialism and the Arabs at the same time because Afrika is not strong enough to withstand the convulsions. The immediate battle is against neo-colonialism so we can make alliances with some Arabs and Arabised Afrikans. Arabised countries ignore Afrikans as there is no threat or any financial benefit to them really linking with other Afrikan countries who they regard as weak and lacking influence. “The degree in which we organise ourselves as Afrikan people inside and outside of Afrika will determine the level of support that the north Afrikan countries give to the pan-Afrikan revolution…When we begin to have the level of respect for ourselves, and understand what the unity of Afrika means then that will determine their relationship with Afrika but until then people are gonna look for outside interests.”
We will play the Q&A session on Nubiart on Wed 21 Feb. To contact Sekou Nkrumah, Chairman, Pan-African Improvement Organization. Tel: 011- 233 243 573 387. E-mail: seknkr@yahoo.com
Full copies of the shows and track playlists are available from Afrikan Quest at the address below.
FORTHCOMING NUBIART SHOWS:
NUBIART 1: Every Wed at 5-7pm. Focus on arts, education, business, sport and health.
Nubiart International Afrikan Heritage Month
Feb: To mark the 30th anniversary of the first screening of the historical epic ‘Roots’ Nubiart will be playing all four parts of ‘Alex Haley Tells The Story of His Search For Roots’. We will play extracts from ‘Roots: The Saga of an American Family’ with music produced by Quincy Jones. We will have related discussions assessing issues of enslavement, historical research, racism, reparations, where we are at now and what is the future for Afrikans.
~ Feb 21: Rene Carayol (Broadcaster, entrepreneur) on his Gambian family’s role in the ‘Roots’ story. Interview by Zhana. Plus Q&A with Sekou Nkrumah, Pan-Afrikan Improvement Organisation, Ghana.
NUBIART 2: Every Sat at 7-9pm. Focus on political developments and the media. (Inc. Afrikan Worldview, Nubiart’s half-hourly weekly news round-up of stories affecting Afrikans worldwide.)
~ Feb 24: Ligali media monitoring project on recent news stories about Afrikans in the UK media.
FEB PROMO:
~ ‘Urban Africa Club’ – Various Artists [Out Here Records – Out Feb 14] Hip-Hop, dancehall and kwaito from the Motherland. Tracks from Sally Nyolo, K’Naan, Necessary Noize and Peter Miles and more.
NUBIART LIBRARY – FEB MEDIA:
We will try to recommend books we have read and DVD / videos we have seen and that are available in shops or libraries. However, given the nature and current state of Afrikan publishing and production there may be books, games and films on this list that are worth the extra effort to track down.
To mark International Afrikan Heritage Month we are recommending the following books by one of the Britain’s foremost Afrikan history scholars and teachers, Robin Walker. All of these books are essential reading for a true grounding in Afrikan history, science, economics, warfare, morals and ethics.
~ ‘When We Ruled’ – Robin Walker [Every Generation Media ISBN: 0-9551068-0-X] Comprehensive study of Afrikan life and customs from prehistory to 20th century. Also contains chapters on the Afrikan diaspora including primary research on Iraqi-based Afrikan skeletons and linguistics by Fari Supiya.
~ ‘Sword Seal and Koran: The Glorious West African Empire of Songhai (250BC-1660AD)’ – Robin Walker and Siaf Millar [Concept Learning ISBN: 1-903181-02-X]
~ ‘Classical Splendour: Roots of Black History’ – Robin Walker [Bogle L’Ouverture Publications Ltd ISBN: 0-904-52133-8]. Robin Walker’s forerunner to ‘When We Ruled’.
NUBIART DIARY:
~ Black Love Movement, People's Hurricane Relief Fund and S.P.A.R.K. presents ‘The Take Back Our City March / Second Line’. Fight for the right to return for all those still displaced, stop the killing of Afrikans and unite the people. Assemble at 11am on Mon Feb 19 at the corner of Orleans and Claiborne Avenues for march to City Hall. Organising meetings held every Mon and Fri at 6pm at PHRF Office, 1418 N. Claiborne Suite 2, New Orleans. For more info or to join / sponsor call: 504-301-0215 or 504-342-6977.
~ Pan-Afrikan Society screening. 'The Assassination of Malcolm X'. "You can never get good relations with anybody that you can't communicate with. You can never have good relations with anybody that doesn't understand you. Understanding and communication are brought about through dialogue..." - Malcolm X. At 5:30pm on Tues 20 Feb in Rm L119, London South Bank University, London Road Building, London, SE1. For info call: 07908 204 788
~ ‘Troops Out Of Iraq! Hands Off Somalia!’ Public Meeting organised by Hammersmith Stop the War Coalition. Speakers: John Rees (Stop the War Coalition), Sh Hassan (Somali Council of Britain), Chair: Cathy Cross (Hammersmith Unison). At 7pm on Tues 20 Feb at Hammersmith Town Hall, King Street, London, W6. Contact – 07973 560 648. Web: www.stopwar.org.uk
~ BRIT @ Nottingham Playhouse presents a double bill: ‘Misrepresented People’, by Nottingham's Nubian All-Stars Youth Theatre and friends. Then ‘Best Kept Secret (OneNess, Tuggs.t.a.r, AmeN NoiR & ShakaRa)’ fill the stage with an exclusive spoken word theatre extravaganza. On 22-23 Feb 2007 at Nottingham Playhouse, Wellington Circus, Nottingham, NG1 5AF. Adm: £8 / £5concs. To book contact Nottingham Playhouse on: 0115 941 9419 or www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk
Also check: www.bestkeptsecretbks.com
~ 100 Black Men of London present a series of films.
- ‘Olaudah Equiano’ plus ‘First Black Britons’ on Fri 23 Feb at 12.30-2.30pm
- ‘Black History Showdown and Careers Day’ on Sat 24 Feb at 11-5.30pm
- ‘Lion of Judah’ plus ‘Ghosts of Rwanda’ on Sun 25 Feb at 2-5.30pm
Admission is first come, first served. For info and venues contact: etf@100bmol.org.uk
~ B.L.A.K. FRIDAY. Due to overwhelming demand Brother Hakim, The Film Doctor, will provide further insight into Hollywood's hidden messages, in this session entitled: ‘Who's Watching Who? Fatal Distraction Part II’. He will explain why in 2007 ‘so called abolitionist year’ we are being bombarded with movies that on the surface appear to be harmless entertainment, but are in fact weapons of mass deception. On 23 Feb 2007 at 7.45pm at Family Health ISIS, 183-185 Rushey Green, Catford, SE6 4BB. Tel: 020 8480 8068. E-mail: info@nubeyond.com or go to www.nubeyond.com
~ Have you read ‘The Great Deception?’ National Demonstration ‘No Trident, Troops out of Iraq’ Join the African contingent – ‘From Ghana (24 Feb 1966) to Somalia today. Can we stop the USA?’ Meet at Hyde Park Corner at 12.30pm on Sat 24 Feb and march to Trafalgar Square. Come with ‘Hands Off Somalia!’ placards and leaflets. Contact – 07984 405 307.
~ Women In Dialogue discussion forum on ‘Leadership and Diversity’. The current climate of ‘political correctness’ inhibits and silences exploratory conversations about differences, similarities and the potential for developing strong working alliances between communities of different cultures and faiths. A panel of women from four distinctly different faith and cultural backgrounds, will debate how faith & culture influences their priorities, leadership, connections with other cultural groups and put forward ideas for strengthening our understanding of working in alliances with workers from other cultures. The forum will end with action planning and a light lunch. At 9.30am–2pm on Mon 5 Mar in Committee Rm 2, Civic Suite, Catford Rd, SE6. For more info contact: Griot, c/o Isis, Kings Court, 1 Harton St, London, SE8 4DD. Adm: Free. Women only. Tel: 020 8691 7201, E-mail: griotonline@hotmail.com
Nubiart is looking for sponsors, presenters and marketers to help us expand the show. For more info contact: Kubara Zamani, Afrikan Quest International, PO Box 35165, London, SE5 8WU Tel: 07811 494 969. E-mail: afrikanquest@hotmail.com Web: www.southwark.tv/quest/aqhome.asp
NB: Nubiart Diary can also be read weekly at www.ligali.org and on the Afrikan Quest website.
NUBIART EDITORIAL:
Editorial Pt 1
“None of us ever must forget that Blacks were the only ones who came here [America] in chattel slave status and in chains.” - Alex Haley
On midweek Nubiart we played ‘Alex Haley Tells The Story of His Search For Roots’, parts 3&4. We picked up the narrative with Haley in Juffure. He explains what happened when he entered the village of about 70 people. He was the first Afrikan to come there from America but the people still remembered those who had been kidnapped centuries before: “Yes, we have been told by the forefathers that there are many of us from this place who are in exile in that place called America and other places.”
The griot, Kebba Kanga Fofana, aged 73, then recounted the history of the Kinte clan. With knowledge of a name, where and when their ancestor was taken from then a griot can trace an exiled Afrikan’s clan. The Kinte clan began in old Mali. The men were blacksmiths and the women were potters and weavers. A branch moved to Mauretania before a branch went to Gambia. Kunta Kinte had three brothers. The griot told how at the time the King’s soldiers came Kunta, the eldest, had gone out to chop wood and was never seen again. This confirmed Haley’s story and was accepted by the griot and interpreter.
Haley had traveled to Juffure by river but went back by land. This allowed him to understand that those who lived by the river were easily kidnapped and enslaved. Further inland it would be as a result of an attack. They were then put in coffles of enslaved Afrikans up to a mile long before making the long march to the ships. In the barrac**ns they would be washed, force-fed, medicated, examined and then branded between the shoulder blades with a hot poker.
It was only when the Afrikans were moved from the barrac**ns to the canoes to take them to the big ships that they then realised that this was no ordinary form of capture and imprisonment but something unimaginable in its horror that involved the removal from the land of their birth. Haley realised that it was a matter of chance which Afrikans were taken overseas and which never left the continent.
It was within the same hour that Haley heard the griot touch on Kunta Kinte that the last of his grandmother’s generation, Cousin Georgia, passed away as if acknowledging that the circle had been completed and she would now be watching him from the realms of the ancestors. Haley told the publishers that he wanted to write the story in a way that it was about one family but it would be a symbol story of the enslavement experience for all Afrikans.
Then Haley talked about the level of research he undertook in Britain and America to trace the ship and its landing point which he had been told was Annapolis, Maryland. He found that British soldiers, led by Colonel Charles O’Hare had gone to Gambia to guard the St James slave fort in 1767. He went to Lloyd’s of London who had access to records of slave ships. “There are more records of slave ships than one would dream. It seems inconceivable until you reflect that for 200 years ships sailed carrying cargo of slaves.”
Haley had to go through 1,023 sets of records in the Public Records Office before he came across the ship, Lord Ligonier. He then used ‘Shipping in the Port of Annapolis’ by Vaughn W Brown to find out when the ship arrived. He traveled to many other archives, crossing the Atlantic three times in 10 days. The ship had left Maryland with rum, sailed to Gravesend in England and used the proceeds to buy slaving hardware, foodstuffs and hire more crew before sailing to the coast of West Afrika.
Haley used his maritime and meteorological experience to track the ship’s journey. This also gave him access to naval officers and librarians who were able to help him with explaining how sailing ships without engines operated at that time and the places and people who had such information.
Of the 140 enslaved Afrikans taken on that ship from St James Fort, Gambia, 98 were declared on arrival at Annapolis - this was an average loss rate. The sale was advertised in the Maryland Gazette. Kunta Kinte was bought by John Waller in Virginia who later sold him to his brother, William, after his foot had been cut off.
Haley ended with this: “And then I reflected about how it seems to me that all of us, everyone of us, it does not matter who, have a stake in something that I thought to be one of the most stirring, moving dramatic, heartrending things I came upon in the study of the culture of Afrika for the book, ‘Roots’. And that was the thing that had to do with how babies were named.
“In this land that we have all heard about as heathens, savages peopling it. That in this land 200, 300, 400 years ago in any little village when a baby was born the people of the village would not see much of the father for seven days because he was occupied with going about keeping pretty much to himself, thinking up a good meaningful significant name for this infant. And bear in mind these ‘heathens’ and ’savages’ we’ve heard so much about, that these babies are the ancestors of we Black people here in the United States today.
“On the eighth day the people of the village would gather at that particular little circular mud wall home with the thatched roof and there would be a stool sitting just outside. The people brought with them, in the Mandinka culture anyway, a jaliba, a drummer, who brought a cylindrical drum called the tan-tan. And then they had another man there, the equivalent of our minister, they called him the alimamo. And the jaliba would give a roll on his drum and the people would stand rigidly at attention. A second roll on the drum and the mother who had been inside waiting for that signal now would step out and sit herself on this stool. Holding the little eight day old infant – these ‘heathens’ and ‘savages’. The third roll on the drum and the alimamo would step forth and bless the gathering because this had happened to everybody there when they were eight days of age. And then the next roll, the father would come from the bush where he was waiting somewhere, just for this signal. And now this father would walk over with every eye on him – his fellow villagers, his neighbours, his tribesmen – and he would walk over to where the mother sat holding this little eight-day-old infant. And the father now would bend and he would lift up this infant and he would turn it so that one of its ears was very close to his lips and into that tiny ear that father would whisper the name he had selected three times. And the thinking of these alleged heathens and savages in doing it this way was that the individual thus named always would be the first to know who he was.
“Those are the ancestors of us, as a people. And it seems to me that the symbolism for us all having nothing whatsoever to do with our race, whatever race we maybe, but just us people as human beings. It seems to me the potential of us and the symbol for us is contained in the second part of the baby naming ceremony. And that was that night when the father now alone would take his infant a distance away from the village. And he would hold it up so that its face, its eyes, looked up towards the firmament, the stars and the moon. And the father would speak to his infant, again the symbol for us all and our potentials, the quote: ‘Behold, the only thing greater than thyself!’”
We finished by playing ‘America (The Promised Land)’, Side 2 of ‘Roots’ by Quincy Jones.
Editorial Pt 2
“If I’m going to talk about the freedom of Afrika and if I’m going to understand our history as a people then I have to go to Afrika and actually see what’s there that I’m studying about, that our people should be involved in, in terms of their freedom and their liberation.” - Sekou Nkrumah, Chairman of the Pan-African Improvement Organisation (PAIO), Ghana
On weekend Nubiart the stories we covered on ‘Afrikan Worldview News Service’ were: ‘South London Murders Claim Fifth Victim, Nigerian Dead Named’; ‘Man Shot Dead In Hackney’; ‘Three Men Hurt In Manchester Shootings’; ‘Youth Killers Jailed For Murdering Two Afrikan Women’; ‘Former BNP Candidate In Court Over Bomb Factory’; ‘Two Gangs Of European Gun Runners Jailed’; ‘Police To ‘Re-Think’ Stop And Search Powers’; ‘Judge Tries To Have Somali Sex Offender Deported Again’; ‘Martial Law Declared In Guinea As Strikes And Deaths Grow’; 'Sudan-Chad Tension Dominates Franco-Afrikan Summit’; ‘Smugglers Leave 107 Somali-Ethiopian Migrants To Drown’; ‘73 Muslim Brotherhood Members Arrested In Egypt’; ‘Western Fears Of Radical Islamist Maghreb’; ‘Mauritanian Plane Hijacker Arrested In Canaries’; ‘Habyarimana Widow Loses Refugee Bid’; ‘US Cancels Liberia's $391m Debt’; and 'Samba Kingpin Shot Dead In Lead-Up To Rio Carnival’.
We then moved on to play the interview with Sekou Nkrumah, the People’s Committee Chairman of the Pan-African Improvement Organisation (PAIO) in Ghana. We started by looking at the genocide in Darfur and the Government of Sudan’s (GoS) belief that anybody who criticises their arming and support for the janjawid is working for the CIA and incapable of independent analysis of the situation. Sekou felt that this highlighted the contradictions in anti-imperialist work as sometimes you support neither of the government ‘sides’ in a conflict as the focus should always be on the benefit for the mass of people at a grassroots level. The Casablanca Group, which was pushing pan-Afrikanism on the Organisation of African Unity in the 1960’s, included many of the north Afrikan states with Gamal Nasser of Egypt to the fore. We returned to Sudan later on.
Sekou then gave us his background. He was born in Chicago, Illinois and attended San Diego State University graduating with a BA in Political Science. The first books that inspired his political activism were ‘Consciencism’ by Kwame Nkrumah, ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ by Walter Rodney and ‘Stolen Legacy’ by George M James. He then moved on to read about the great works and organisation of Rt Hon Marcus Mosiah Garvey and Malcolm X. “All of that welded me to a point to where I know that I have a responsibility to our people, in terms of our liberation and our freedom.”
He has helped to organise several Afrikan Liberation Day demonstrations in California, New York and at a Liberian refugee camp in Ghana. He was one of the main organisers of the anti-apartheid movement in San Diego as a student in the mid-‘80s. Sekou Nkrumah also sparked the name change of several Black Student Unions to African Student Unions in the 1980s on university campuses in the San Diego area.
He has visited several West African countries, and in 1986 was part of a student delegation that visited Burkina Faso, and held meetings with President Thomas Sankara and top government officials. He also spoke before the UN Special Commission Against Apartheid as a representative of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party and an invited guest of the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania in 1991.
Throughout the 1990s he organised annual tours to Ghana encouraging Africans in America to repatriate. He founded and was the Executive Director of the Pan-African Institute of Technology, an organisation dedicated to Pan-Africanism and building technical institutes for African youth throughout the continent in line with the blueprint of Cheikh Anta Diop. He is now building an independently-funded pan-Afrikan technical institute near Accra, the capital of Ghana.
He taught maths in New York and California schools. He organised the first Pan-African Conference for Education in Nov 2000 at Medger Evers College in Brooklyn, New York. Sekou started teaching in 1983 and saw the rise of rap music among the youths. While it started off as a radical, liberatory influence by the late-80’s with the rise of ‘pimp gangsta rap’ it had become destructive, obsessed with materialism and degenerating into a catalogue of ‘beefs’ with no uplifting message. He would work with students who showed an interest in consciousness.
Sekou is currently a writer and resident of Ghana. He has written for the Insight, a Ghanaian based newspaper, and is the author of the book ‘Repatriation and Pan-Africanism: The Suppression of Two Movements’, and soon to be released books ‘The Historical Legacy of Ghana’s Founding Father Kwame Nkrumah’, and ‘Africans Are At War: A Case Study and Historical Analysis for Revolution’. He was passing through Britain on a tour to promote the books before returning to Ghana for Independence Day. He is dedicated to the freedom of all Afrikan people and an All Afrikan Union Government.
We discussed the brain, skills, youth and care drain out of Afrika which is happening at the same time as many Afrikans in the diaspora want to return to Afrika. Last year 31,000 Afrikans crossed from the west coast mainland to the Canary Islands with 8,000 dying in the process. Sekou pointed out that over 800 million people still live in Afrika and don’t think about leaving regardless of their situation. “One of the things that I found out in moving to Afrika is that the only time people talk about coming outside Afrika is when they’re around people who were born outside of Afrika.”
However, he was scathing of the Afrikan governments who conspire with the capitalist media to portray their countries so badly by not concentrating on providing for the needs of their people: “The neo-colonialist puppets that’s in power they allow this to happen. Because rather than taking care of the needs of the people inside the country in order to have them settle themselves properly and develop the human resources inside of Afrika; in order to keep the people’s minds off neo-colonialism and how it exploits them and oppress them they allow the capitalist media to come in and fool and trick the people and make them think that’s its better on the outside than it is on the inside of Afrika. Some people buy into that and it’s true they risk their lives but for the masses of the people they know they’re not going anywhere. They’re proud, like where I’m at, they’re proud to be Ghanaians.”
Sekou also thought repatriation by diasporan Afrikans was a link that would expose the lies about how life is for Afrikans outside Afrika and the need for genuine pan-Afrikanism. He stressed the importance of Afrikans teaching the correct history and proper education to make people value what they have and want to work for the betterment of Afrika. Learning about the achievements of the Rt Hon Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Amilcar Cabral, Kwame Nkrumah, Cheikh Anta Diop, PAC leader Robert Sobukwe, Franz Fanon, Kwame Ture, Ben Bella, Gamal Nasser, Julius Nyerere, Sekou Toure, Edward Wilmot Blyden and others who have provided us with ideas and solutions. Sekou pointerd out that the UNIA was in Namibia and it was its members who set up SWAPO. “Our enemy is not going to highlight those things in their education because it works against their interests, so it’s our job!”
Sekou pointed out that Afrika is the richest real estate in the world. Despite 500 years of rampant European exploitation there is still gold, diamonds and other minerals in abundance. This is why there were two imperialist world wars fought over Afrika and Europeans still need Afrikan resources so badly that they are forcing Afrikans to move off their land. He reminded us of the need to also practice a class analysis of the issues so that we don’t get fooled by people who look like us but do not represent the interests of the mass of Afrikans.
Every Afrikan has a role to play in developing Afrika. Those who don’t want to leave the diaspora have a duty to destroy capitalism where they are as this is what is propping up the neo-colonial systems perpetuating Afrika’s misery. Sekou gave an example of what organisation in the diaspora could achieve. Afrikans in America have $600bn in wealth. If 10% of that was used to develop Afrika that would be $60bn. Adding the wealth of Afrikans in other countries would dwarf any aid coming from non-Afrikan ‘friends and foes’. He felt that even the Afrikans who cause problems in the diaspora would benefit by a trip to Afrika. “If we change their environment we can change their conditioning and their behaviour.”
Land has been set aside in many countries for those who want to return by leaders such as Haile Selassie in Ethiopia. Sekou felt it was necessary to learn an Afrikan language to enable people to understand the issues on the ground and the nuances of the interactions. This should go alongside developing projects that benefit the people on the ground and not just going there to be an exploiter.
“Afrika will humble you and if you don’t want to humble yourself then you won’t be in Afrika too long.”
On the role of Afrikan spirituality. In the diaspora picking up knowledge and practices may seem like consciousness but without knowing where that fit into the social structure can lead to problems as some practitioners may have their own difficulties with the local population.
We moved back on to the issue of Sudan which claims that it was the first Afrikan country to gain independence in the 20th Century in 1956 while most people say Ghana was first in 1957. Sekou pointed out that Ghana was the first country to get independence and push for pan-Afrikanism before the neo-colonialists removed Nkrumah in 1966. This led to a discussion about ‘The Mulatto Problem’ as raised by Chancellor Williams in his book ‘The Destruction of Black Civilisation’. Here Williams puts forward that north and east Afrika were invaded by non-Afrikans through war, trade and intermarriage leading to a lighter-skinned ruling class, including the Amharas in Ethiopia, who suppress indigenous Afrikan traditions. If this argument holds then Ethiopia, which many pan-Afrikanists consider as being independent except for the brief time of the 1936-41 Italian invasion (and the years immediately following when Britain and the UN administered it while Haile Selassie was re-establishing himself on the throne) would also have been colonised except its period of colonisation would have begun thousands of years earlier and continued into the current time. Sekou disagreed with Williams on this and didn’t feel at ease with the term ‘mulatto’. He felt that all people with Afrikan ancestry should be classed as Afrikan. He also didn’t feel that shade was a direct indicator of pan-Afrikan tendency citing Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now DRC) as an example of neo-colonialism coming in all shapes and sizes.
Sekou acknowledged the destructive behaviour of some Arabs and Arabised Afrikans in Afrika but didn’t think it wise to fight neo-colonialism and the Arabs at the same time because Afrika is not strong enough to withstand the convulsions. The immediate battle is against neo-colonialism so we can make alliances with some Arabs and Arabised Afrikans. Arabised countries ignore Afrikans as there is no threat or any financial benefit to them really linking with other Afrikan countries who they regard as weak and lacking influence. “The degree in which we organise ourselves as Afrikan people inside and outside of Afrika will determine the level of support that the north Afrikan countries give to the pan-Afrikan revolution…When we begin to have the level of respect for ourselves, and understand what the unity of Afrika means then that will determine their relationship with Afrika but until then people are gonna look for outside interests.”
We will play the Q&A session on Nubiart on Wed 21 Feb. To contact Sekou Nkrumah, Chairman, Pan-African Improvement Organization. Tel: 011- 233 243 573 387. E-mail: seknkr@yahoo.com
Full copies of the shows and track playlists are available from Afrikan Quest at the address below.
FORTHCOMING NUBIART SHOWS:
NUBIART 1: Every Wed at 5-7pm. Focus on arts, education, business, sport and health.
Nubiart International Afrikan Heritage Month
Feb: To mark the 30th anniversary of the first screening of the historical epic ‘Roots’ Nubiart will be playing all four parts of ‘Alex Haley Tells The Story of His Search For Roots’. We will play extracts from ‘Roots: The Saga of an American Family’ with music produced by Quincy Jones. We will have related discussions assessing issues of enslavement, historical research, racism, reparations, where we are at now and what is the future for Afrikans.
~ Feb 21: Rene Carayol (Broadcaster, entrepreneur) on his Gambian family’s role in the ‘Roots’ story. Interview by Zhana. Plus Q&A with Sekou Nkrumah, Pan-Afrikan Improvement Organisation, Ghana.
NUBIART 2: Every Sat at 7-9pm. Focus on political developments and the media. (Inc. Afrikan Worldview, Nubiart’s half-hourly weekly news round-up of stories affecting Afrikans worldwide.)
~ Feb 24: Ligali media monitoring project on recent news stories about Afrikans in the UK media.
FEB PROMO:
~ ‘Urban Africa Club’ – Various Artists [Out Here Records – Out Feb 14] Hip-Hop, dancehall and kwaito from the Motherland. Tracks from Sally Nyolo, K’Naan, Necessary Noize and Peter Miles and more.
NUBIART LIBRARY – FEB MEDIA:
We will try to recommend books we have read and DVD / videos we have seen and that are available in shops or libraries. However, given the nature and current state of Afrikan publishing and production there may be books, games and films on this list that are worth the extra effort to track down.
To mark International Afrikan Heritage Month we are recommending the following books by one of the Britain’s foremost Afrikan history scholars and teachers, Robin Walker. All of these books are essential reading for a true grounding in Afrikan history, science, economics, warfare, morals and ethics.
~ ‘When We Ruled’ – Robin Walker [Every Generation Media ISBN: 0-9551068-0-X] Comprehensive study of Afrikan life and customs from prehistory to 20th century. Also contains chapters on the Afrikan diaspora including primary research on Iraqi-based Afrikan skeletons and linguistics by Fari Supiya.
~ ‘Sword Seal and Koran: The Glorious West African Empire of Songhai (250BC-1660AD)’ – Robin Walker and Siaf Millar [Concept Learning ISBN: 1-903181-02-X]
~ ‘Classical Splendour: Roots of Black History’ – Robin Walker [Bogle L’Ouverture Publications Ltd ISBN: 0-904-52133-8]. Robin Walker’s forerunner to ‘When We Ruled’.
NUBIART DIARY:
~ Black Love Movement, People's Hurricane Relief Fund and S.P.A.R.K. presents ‘The Take Back Our City March / Second Line’. Fight for the right to return for all those still displaced, stop the killing of Afrikans and unite the people. Assemble at 11am on Mon Feb 19 at the corner of Orleans and Claiborne Avenues for march to City Hall. Organising meetings held every Mon and Fri at 6pm at PHRF Office, 1418 N. Claiborne Suite 2, New Orleans. For more info or to join / sponsor call: 504-301-0215 or 504-342-6977.
~ Pan-Afrikan Society screening. 'The Assassination of Malcolm X'. "You can never get good relations with anybody that you can't communicate with. You can never have good relations with anybody that doesn't understand you. Understanding and communication are brought about through dialogue..." - Malcolm X. At 5:30pm on Tues 20 Feb in Rm L119, London South Bank University, London Road Building, London, SE1. For info call: 07908 204 788
~ ‘Troops Out Of Iraq! Hands Off Somalia!’ Public Meeting organised by Hammersmith Stop the War Coalition. Speakers: John Rees (Stop the War Coalition), Sh Hassan (Somali Council of Britain), Chair: Cathy Cross (Hammersmith Unison). At 7pm on Tues 20 Feb at Hammersmith Town Hall, King Street, London, W6. Contact – 07973 560 648. Web: www.stopwar.org.uk
~ BRIT @ Nottingham Playhouse presents a double bill: ‘Misrepresented People’, by Nottingham's Nubian All-Stars Youth Theatre and friends. Then ‘Best Kept Secret (OneNess, Tuggs.t.a.r, AmeN NoiR & ShakaRa)’ fill the stage with an exclusive spoken word theatre extravaganza. On 22-23 Feb 2007 at Nottingham Playhouse, Wellington Circus, Nottingham, NG1 5AF. Adm: £8 / £5concs. To book contact Nottingham Playhouse on: 0115 941 9419 or www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk
Also check: www.bestkeptsecretbks.com
~ 100 Black Men of London present a series of films.
- ‘Olaudah Equiano’ plus ‘First Black Britons’ on Fri 23 Feb at 12.30-2.30pm
- ‘Black History Showdown and Careers Day’ on Sat 24 Feb at 11-5.30pm
- ‘Lion of Judah’ plus ‘Ghosts of Rwanda’ on Sun 25 Feb at 2-5.30pm
Admission is first come, first served. For info and venues contact: etf@100bmol.org.uk
~ B.L.A.K. FRIDAY. Due to overwhelming demand Brother Hakim, The Film Doctor, will provide further insight into Hollywood's hidden messages, in this session entitled: ‘Who's Watching Who? Fatal Distraction Part II’. He will explain why in 2007 ‘so called abolitionist year’ we are being bombarded with movies that on the surface appear to be harmless entertainment, but are in fact weapons of mass deception. On 23 Feb 2007 at 7.45pm at Family Health ISIS, 183-185 Rushey Green, Catford, SE6 4BB. Tel: 020 8480 8068. E-mail: info@nubeyond.com or go to www.nubeyond.com
~ Have you read ‘The Great Deception?’ National Demonstration ‘No Trident, Troops out of Iraq’ Join the African contingent – ‘From Ghana (24 Feb 1966) to Somalia today. Can we stop the USA?’ Meet at Hyde Park Corner at 12.30pm on Sat 24 Feb and march to Trafalgar Square. Come with ‘Hands Off Somalia!’ placards and leaflets. Contact – 07984 405 307.
~ Women In Dialogue discussion forum on ‘Leadership and Diversity’. The current climate of ‘political correctness’ inhibits and silences exploratory conversations about differences, similarities and the potential for developing strong working alliances between communities of different cultures and faiths. A panel of women from four distinctly different faith and cultural backgrounds, will debate how faith & culture influences their priorities, leadership, connections with other cultural groups and put forward ideas for strengthening our understanding of working in alliances with workers from other cultures. The forum will end with action planning and a light lunch. At 9.30am–2pm on Mon 5 Mar in Committee Rm 2, Civic Suite, Catford Rd, SE6. For more info contact: Griot, c/o Isis, Kings Court, 1 Harton St, London, SE8 4DD. Adm: Free. Women only. Tel: 020 8691 7201, E-mail: griotonline@hotmail.com
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