The current times continue to extract a heavy toll from the Afrikan community: locally and globally, politically and culturally as we get to grips with news of the passing of family, friends and icons.
So for this show we return to the rescheduled tribute of Dr Llaila Oleta Afrika. He was by no means the first holistic health practitioner but was undoubtedly a pioneer who sought to revolutionise and politicise the field. This was typified by his 1995 book, Nutricide: The Nutritional Destruction of the Black Race. The cover of which features a tombstone with the inscription, “Here lies Mr and Mrs Negro, they ate themselves to death.”
As a Doctor of Naturopath (Diploma), Licensed Acupuncturist, Certified Addictionologist, Medical Astrologist, Certified Nutritional Counselor Dr Llaila O Afrika, provided over fifty-three years of hands on Holistic Health experience across the world. The official announcement stated:
“Dr. Llaila Olela Afrika had made his transition to rebirth. It is his request that we all carry out his legacy. He has left a map for understanding the body, the mind, and the spirit. He dedicated his life for his people, so that they will have direction in all aspects of holistic living. He has left his wife Dr. Melanie Stevenson to carry his torch. As we all mourn, just know that Dr. Afrika lived his life full of GREAT Health and left on his own terms. Please keep his wife and family in your prayers. He sincerely wanted his products, books, classes, and supplements to be available forever. His wife Dr. Stevenson will be a steward of his legacy. Let us all collectively move his work forward.” (https://www.llailaafrika.com/legends-live-forever-dr-afrika-dies/)
His introductory comments under the heading The Overlooked Revolution, to the classic (over 100,000 in print) Afrikan Holistic Health, first published in 1989 and arguably the book that brought him to global attention of many, gave an indication of the scope of the matter at hand:
“There is an overlooked revolution in Black worldwide culture. Socially, Black people have protested, marched, rebelled, voted, sang, and cried for a revolution for Black Nationalism, freedom, justice, self-identity, self-destiny, equality and the reaffirmation of African medical treatment concepts. Today, Blacks are totally enslaved by another culture’s (Caucasian) diet and medical system. They have become a Black Nation of Nutritional Uncle Toms who are denied the human right to practice their culture’s medicine (i.e., denied insurance coverage for herb and folk medicine).
Traditionally, the Africanization of European culture has occurred in Black culture. For example, Africanization of English has resulted in the Negro Dialect, Africanized European music resulted in jazz, Africanized religious music resulted in Gospel, the Africanization of the waltz resulted in the jitterbug and the impact of this African thrust has caused Black (African) Studies in colleges. Also, the reclaiming of African clothes and garments, hairstyles (cornrows), languages, names, and history has demonstrated the extent of the social revolution. Yet one major step has been overlooked in this process: the reclaiming of African herbal medicine and a natural whole foods diet and lifestyle.
Wholistic thinking is the key to understanding European cultural bias and White racism as applied to diet and medicine. Wholism means that everything (i.e., air, water, fire, earth, electricity, colors, metal) has a form (physical body), physic and spirit energy state. This wholistic concept was a part of African cultures that existed before the Sahara Lake became the Sahara. Desert…
Europeans culturally distorted all sciences by fragmentation, or the so-called analytical concept, which is based on separation. In other words, they separated the mind, the body and the spirit. Consequently, Europeans treat the mind in a psychiatric clinic, the spirit in a church and the body in a hospital; while African science includes the body, mind and spirit as whole-wholistically. In fact, European science does not include the spirit’s affect upon the body, mind, diet or culture’s diet and health practices without first Africanizing it…
Aftricanization of alien (non-African) cultures means placing the intelligence’s of the spirit, mind and body as the foundation. this should be done because other cultures establish and maintain their sciences to meet their societal needs…
Blacks have specific dietary needs. These nutritional needs arise because Blacks have specific bodily differences as compared to other races and cultures…” (1)
The challenge, then as now, remains as to how we can institutionalise this approach to holistic health. The legacy of the work done by Llaila is that we now benefit from a range of revolutionary naturopathic practitioners, including here in the UK. One serious attempt to address this on a national level was contained within the manifesto produced by the interim National Afrikan People’s Parliament (iNAPP):
“Evaluation
Taking into account the three major factors in determining conditions of health and wellness (heredity, environment and education) the iNAPP, takes the view that the compromised health status of Afrikan people in Britain and worldwide, is the continued historical effects of the Maafa. In the aforesaid speech, Prof Hilary Beckles attests:
“The Afrikan people in the Caribbean are the unhealthiest people on this planet, if we take the criterion of chronic diseases as our measurement. Afrikan people in the Caribbean have the highest incidents of type-two diabetes and hypertension… Our medical scientists have shown that this is related directly to the stress profile experienced…during slavery and colonisation… which would suggest that these Afrikans have been taken through a process of physical transformation that has rendered them unhealthy.”
More and more evidence is being adduced as to the detrimental impact of slavery and colonialism, physiologically as well as mentally, which have been transmitted trans-generationally and further compounded by ongoing racial oppression; which consigns Afrikan people, disproportionately, to abject poverty and related poor diet, poor health care as well as related stress and depression.
Ignorance about matters of health and wellness and the significance and impact of the physical and social environment, including of healthy diet and stress avoidance are also very important areas of concern, in need of urgent remedy for our people.
The NAPP recognises that our physical, social, emotional, psychological and spiritual well-being are all interlinked as threads tied together in our collective memories, trans-generationally, in our sub-conscious minds and in our DNA. We also subscribe to the ancient adage:
“Your food is your medicine” and
“You are what you eat.”
The Way Forward
The NAPP is deeply concerned about the health status of our people in Britain and worldwide and is firmly committed to tackling this problem and finding solutions. We see this as a national and international problem which can only and must be solved by ‘Governments of The People’ by the People, for and in the interest of The People.
The NAPP will:
Institute a Department of Health and Wellness, employing a team of health practitioners and experts to advise the parliament on all matters in this area of nation building and to undertake the following:
• Carryout comprehensive research in into the nature and causes of the disproportionate health challenges (physical, mental, spiritual) facing Afrikan people in the UK.
• Develop a holistic National Health Action Plan, to tackle the health and wellness deficits of Afrikan people in the UK (including social and physical environmental factors) and for the restoration of optimum health and wellness on a national level.
• Establish culturally appropriate holistic health and wellness centres for conducting extensive research, training of health practitioners, promoting public education and dispensing health care and treatment (combining conventional and traditional healing arts and sciences).
• Fund and assist young people in pursuing medical careers, including university courses in medicine (homeopathic and conventional), nursing and other health care professions eg psychology, physiotherapy, etc.
• Support and promote existing health and wellness programmes and projects in Afrikan communities throughout the country.
• Engage with the National Health Service to influence, inform and monitor the care and treatment of Afrikan people and the comparative outcomes.
• Create links with international health institutions, professionals and practitioners involved in the care of Afrikan people to interchange skills and resources to enhance the global health status of our people.” (2)
We know there was a leadership implosion within iNAPP, the causes of which have never been fully interrogated on a community level. The outcome is that an orientation of establishing a national agenda has been sorely lacking. Such an agenda would be invaluable at this juncture in history where the government is imposing all kinds of measures that we have yet to evaluate the long-term implications of and would take establishing a model of holistic health and wellness as its foundation.
But while we focus on the health issue we should be clear that all that is happening currently is within a political context. While we are being asked to clap for NHS staff, depicted as mainly white (3), the state is going into overdrive applying new repressive measures that they themselves don’t seem to understand. For those who doubt that Afrikan people will be disproportionately targeted need to look no further than Sis. Marie Dinou, “the first person to be prosecuted for breaching coronavirus lockdown rules,” only to have the conviction “quashed because police arrested her under the wrong law.” (4) Those with long memories may be reminded of the so-called “ring of steel” in the 1990s. These were a series of police checkpoints set up by the Metropolitan police to prevent the Irish Republican Army (IRA) from bringing bombs into the city of London. Needless to say, Afrikans found themselves unduly caught in the dragnet despite there being no known Afrikan involvement in the IRA. (5)
Whenever governments deploy sweeping powers there are always dissenting voices and in the age of social media they are even harder to repress. Still, the government has announced that it is “cracking down on misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.” (6) One area where they are being particularly aggressive is with the link between COVID-19 and 5G to the extent that Tech firms have been “summoned over ‘crackpot’ 5G conspiracies (ordering them to) be more aggressive in their response to conspiracy theories linking 5G networks to the coronavirus pandemic.” (7) Which is itself the height of irony from a government that only months ago engaged in its own fake news enterprise with ‘factcheck UK.’ Hen challenged on the deceit they declared that “no one gives a toss.” (8)
We don’t yet know what measures will be brought in to enforce the official narrative but it may require a more strategic use of social media to ensure essential information can be shared without intervention.
(1) Llaila O. Afrika (1998) Afrikan Holisitc Health. A&B Publishers Group. p. 14-5
(2) iNAPP Interim National Organising Committee (28/11/15) ‘MANIFESTO : Working Draft For Community Consultation. interim National Afrikan People’s Parliament. p. 19-20
(3) Dotun Adebayo (31/03/20) Why were black NHS staff whitewashed out of Clap For Our Carers? https://www.voice-online.co.uk/news/coronavirus/2020/03/31/why-were-black-nhs-staff-left-out-of-clap-for-our-carers/
(4) Martin Robinson (03/04/20) First person to be prosecuted for breaching coronavirus lockdown rules will have conviction quashed because police arrested her under the wrong law. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8184731/First-person-prosecuted-new-coronavirus-laws-conviction-quashed.html
(5) Will Bennett (03/07/93) Ring of steel makes a rusty start. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ring-of-steel-makes-a-rusty-start-1482871.html
(6) BBC News (30/03/20) Coronavirus: Fake news crackdown by UK government. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52086284
(7) Leo Kelion (05/04/20) Coronavirus: Tech firms summoned over ‘crackpot’ 5G conspiracies. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52172570
(8) Frances Perraudin (20/11/19) Twitter accuses Tories of misleading public with ‘factcheck’ foray. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/20/twitter-accuses-tories-of-misleading-public-in-factcheck-row
We ask the question:
What should our national health agenda include?
1) What is Dr Llaila Afrika’s legacy to the Afrikan world?
2) Are we really “totally enslaved by another culture’s (Caucasian) diet and medical system”?
3) Has this made us “the unhealthiest people on this planet”?
4) Should we have developed a community response to the COVID-19 pandemic?
5) Do we need to be more strategic in our use of social media?
Our Special Guests:
Eld. Emmanuel Amevor: if a former Young Pioneer in Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana and Ex-CEO of the Centerprise Trust Ltd. He is also the founder of Word Power, International Black literature Festival and Book Fair. Eld Emmanuel also worked extensively with Dr Llaila O Afrika.
Bro. Stephen Ssali: is a Holistic Health Nutritional Consultant, intuitive healer and quantum energy coach. He is the CEO of the Mariandina research foundation. Mariandina is a natural nutritional supplement formula created by Dr Charles Ssali for the maintenance of GOOD GENERAL HEALTH in people of all ages and walks of life. Mariandina has helped people increase energy levels, boost immunity, increase appetite. Essentially, it can be used by anyone who want to maintain good health by supplementing the nutritional deficiencies found in any diet. (www.mariandina.com/)