We continue to look forward to the interim National Afrikan People’s Parliament (iNAPP) General People’s Assembly (GPA) from 4.30pm to 9.30pm on Imani-Day (Sat) 28/11/15 at Queen  Mother Moore School Hall, Nelson’s Row, Clapham, London, under the theme Revitalising the iNAPP vision.

As we observe 14 years (22/11/2001) since the police killing of Bro. Ricky Bishop and acknowledge the scores of Afrikans that have died at the hands of the state since then – with no recourse to justice, it is just one indication of the crises engulfing Afrikans in the UK (and around the world).  We bemoan, educational underachievement and high exclusion rates but have yet to advance an alternative (Afrikan-centred) education strategy and school-building programme; our young people falls victim to manufactured turf wars, police harassment and exponential incarceration rates but have still to institute a widespread rites of passage programme, or establish initiatives to engage our young people.  There are a number of ostensibly solid economic programmes within the community (e.g. ABDF, ACU, Afrikan Food Hall, MEMAMS, etc) none of which arguably gets the supports it requires or deserves.  The disproportionate levels of Afrikans living in poverty and working in the public sector are likely to suffer further devastation as a result of the austerity cuts.

The area of reparations is perhaps one area where sterling work by activists has advanced the narrative to the extent that even a former UK Defence Secretary (Michael Portillo) could make the following admission on the TV show, This Week on 01/10/15:

“I think the claim for reparations for slavery is not without merit. I mean, after all, there are many fortunes in the present day, if you look around the city of London that were built on slavery.   The reason why it has to be dismissed is because it would be so horrendously expensive to meet. Because not only, I think, you would have to be dealing with the fortunes from which many of us still benefit today which were made from slavery, but actually you’ll be dealing with the second class citizenship in which Black people have been placed for the last couple of centuries, since slavery was ended in the British empire and then later in the united states.   “And so I just wanted to be clear that when David Cameron dismissed this, it was not, in my view, because it’s a ridiculous claim. It simply one that we can’t afford.”

Nevertheless, coming out the recent Edinburgh Reparations Conference some activists were making the call for a national reparations strategy to compliment the effective work that’s been done.

All of this relates to iNAPP insofar that national (and international) challenges require national (and international)solutions.  The iNAPP draft constitution outlines its aim to be: “To be a national, independent, representative body designed to promote, preserve and protect the best interest of Afrikan people domiciled in the UK (and globally) and to establish the framework for the restoration of Afrikan sovereignty through nation building.”  Add to this the first four points listed among iNAPP’s aims:

1.    To be an effective, progressive and mandated ‘voice’ for Afrikans in the UK.
2.    To define, defend and develop the best interests of Afrikans in the UK (and globally).
3.    To build the infrastructure for Afrikan self-governance, economic self-reliance and social development, including independent institutions (education, health, science).
4.    To campaign, lobby and hold to account the government and other state institutions, vis a vis the rights and justice of Afrikan people: including reparations for the Maafa.
In other words iNAPP’s  diagnosis for  the ills that face Afrikans in the UK is a comprehensive nation building strategy.  Even if we restrict it only to the last 200 years  Afrikans have never been short of nation building strategies: Haiti; Martin Delany and of course the Most Eminent Prophet and King, His Excellency  Marcus Mosiah Garvey.  In more recent time there has been a plethora of activists that have attempted to distil the best of our nationalist traditions to enable to confront our current challenges.  Some of the most outstanding of these include the likes : Kwame Agyei Akoto (NationBuilding), Marimba Ani (Yurugu), Mwalimu Bomani Baruti (Iwa: A Warrior’s Character, et al), Kamau Kambon (The Last Book) and Haki Madhubuti (c. 1973-1990 – Enemies: The Clash of Races).  One of the most outstanding of his generation was the late, great psychologist and warrior scholar Amos Wilson (The Developmental Psychology of the Black Child, Black-on-Black Violence: The Psychodynamics of Black Self-Annihilation in Service of White Domination, Awakening the Natural Genius of Black Children  and his tour de force Blueprint for Black Power).  What Dr Wilson makes clear is that contemplation of nation building must be connected to notion of power, typified in one of his messages The ABCs of Oppression and Genocide:

“We can end his (the European’s) victimisation of us when we end his power to do so. And consequently, I want to bring into the domain of discussion in this community, the subject matter of power.  I want us in addition to studying black history and culture, to study power – its accumulation, its use and application.  We should talk about it every day and everywhere.  We should read about it and we should develop the means of using it.  We should come to understand the nature of how white power is organised.  In the end, power does not flow from the genes of white folks.  It does not flow from their ice age.  It flows from the nature of their organisation and the way they have chosen to relate one to the other.  And it flows from their intentionality as a people and their appropriate organisation of themselves to realise their intentionality, one of which is of course the domination of Afrikan people.  And that means then that we as Afrikan people must study the rules of organisation.  We must study the means of relating one to each other in such a way that we multiply our power.  We must study our enemies’ organisation such that we can probe that organisation and destroy the power of the enemy.  And we can do it.  We have a tremendous amount of power in our hands… we are not a weak people by any stretch of the imagination.  The only weakness is in our minds and in our imaginations.  That’s the only place.  We are not a dependent people in the material sense, only in the psychological sense.  The only thing ladies and gentlemen we must get over is our cowardice.”

So we ask the question,

Are Afrikans in the UK ready for nation building?

1.    Will you be attending the General People’s assembly on 28/11?
2.    Why are we so reluctant to support seemingly viable economic programmes ?
3.    Is it worthwhile talking about reparations outside the context of nation building and power?
4.    Why have we failed to successfully apply a lasting nation building strategy in the last two centuries?
5.    Is “cowardice” preventing us from nation building

Our special guests are:

Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and UNIA-ACL Ambassador for the UK and national co-Chair of the interim National Afrikan People’s Parliament.  Bro.Ldr is a veteran activist of over 30 years standing, a featured columnist in The Whirlwind newspaper and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An Africentric Guide To Excellence.

Baba Clarence Thompson MBE:  is a social scientist, poet, teacher and Chairman of the West Indian Standing Conference. He is also a retired Human Resources Manager and businessman with extensive knowledge and experience of the corporate, business and community sectors. He was awarded an MBE in 1965 for his advocacy for Equal Opportunities and work to implement  Race Relations legislation in UK.  Baba Clarence is the Chair of the Queen Mother Moore School Committee and a member of the iNAPP Elder’s Council.

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Afrika Speaks with Alkebu-Lan