We continue with the legacy Marcus left as an
individual, an organisational person and a leader of African people as
analysed by my Comrade and Brother Amos N. Wilson (RIP); author of
Blueprint for Black Power, and many other followers of this giant of a
man! Was he megalomania or a true capitalist nigger?
Chika Onyeani (pictured), an internationally
acclaimed journalist, defines a “capitalist nigger” as [an economic
warrior who uses every legal means to accumulate wealth and brings back
the wealth to the community ... is very intelligent and an educated
consumer...the greatest asset she/he possess is absolute belief in self
and the unflinching desire to succeed... failure is never an option.].
Megalomania is a false belief that you are very powerful and important
or you have a strong desire for power.
Marcus Garvey was already organising at the age of
20, he was printing newspapers which were distributed all over the
world and brought positive consciousness to the suffering black masses
the world over. He formed the famous UNIA, an organisation which had
over 6,000,000 active members as far as South Africa! He did all this
and more without the advantage of modern technology, working in a
violent and hostile environment of racism and labour exploitation. His
personality terrorised the USA and British governments and some
affluent, educated Negro leaders!
We saw how Garvey was so repulsed with the horrid
life of Black people everywhere. In Costa Rica he tried to protest and
pressed the British Consul to help the black “subjects” who were being
ripped off. He was answered “if they don’t like conditions here, they
can leave”. He was arrested for agitating workers and to avoid the wrath
of the authorities he fled to Panama in 1911. He started La Pensa, a
news vehicle to publicise and showcase the various versions of Black
sufferings. Garvey protests against these horrors were met with a brick
wall and soon put the newspaper out of business in Ecuador, Nicaragua,
Venezuela, Honduras, and Columbia because of workers disunity, fear and
political apathy.
The brutal lesson on the value of Black life sank
in real deep! Dante’s’ word in the Inferno (abandon all hope all ye who
enter here) hit him on the face. Our captured ancestors must have felt
the same way crossing “The door of no return” in Ghana and how they had
to “lay down their souls and despair” In Tanzania before being sold as
“human stock” across oceans!
Sickened by the experience and disease he returned
home to Jamaica. Worse news awaited him; that black Jamaicans and
Barbadian in the British West Indies Regiments had been used to crush
the rightful resistance of indigenous Africans who fought to defend
their birthrights from imperial theft. During The Asante Wars
(1887-1900) the brave sons of Kumasi were torn to shreds by machine
gunfire and more tragic views of the Black world was unfolding before
the very eyes of the young Marcus Garvey!
One of the predecessors and descendants of Pan
Africanism who impacted on him was Booker T. Washington, and especially
his book Up from Slavery made Marcus Garvey ask a lot of questions.
Where is the Black man’s government? Where is his President, his
country, his army, navy, his men of big affairs? And not finding them,
true to his resolve he declared “I shall create them.”
In 1912 Garvey departed for England intent upon
broadening his perspective and he used his time well. He attended
lectures at Berbeck University of London, was a regular at the House of
Commons, studied at important libraries and spoke at Hyde Park Speakers
Corner and travelled to several European countries. In England he
secured a job at The African Times and Orient Review published by an
indigenous African, Duse Mohamed Ali, a scholar and brilliant
propagandist, world traveller who agitated for African independence. He
became Garvey’s mentor enlightening him of Africa’s antiquity, people,
mineral wealth and tremendous potential. He informed him of the
continuing Arab slave trade and the present configuration of Africa as a
result of the Berlin Conference Nov 1884-Feb1885.
A much more invigorated and enlightened Marcus
Garvey returned to Jamaica in June 1914 a month before the outbreak of
the First World War. His mind was filled with ideas of enterprise and
establishing an association. In Five days he established the association
for Africans at home and abroad, was launched on the 01-08-1914, the
anniversary of the abolition of African enslavement in the British West
Indies. And its flag was red, black and green. (the third and final part
of this series will be published tomorrow)
Marie Memouna Shaba is a Tanzanian socio-economic analyst in the context of Cultural Heritage mtuwakale@hotmail.com
source: The citizen
source: The citizen
