• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

ISSUE #1 JAN 2014 M A G A Z I N E ROOTS / ROCK / REGGAE / RESPECT THIRD WORLD Reggae Ambassadors years strong 40 IRIEMAG.COM ISSUE #1 / JANUARY 2014 Welcome to our first issue of IRIE, a digital magazine about ROOTS, ROCK, REGGAE and RESPECT. We hope you will enjoy this first of many issues to come! From everyone here at IRIE, we wish you a Happy New Year! Much love and respect! Nicholas “Nico” Da Silva Founder/Publisher IRIEMAG.COM ROOTS. ROCK. REGGAE. Marcus Garvey Hubert Devonish Third World There is a Better Way A Fi Wi Langwij Reggae Ambassadors RESPECT. REWIND. RIDDIMS. Kindah Danny Creatah DoobieSound One Family World A Reggae Free Your Mind TABLE OF CONTENT. ROOTS. Marcus Garvey There is a Better Way MARCUS GARVEY There is a Better Way By Kam-Au Amen It disappoints me when individuals comment that the smear campaign such as the trumped up mail fraud charge against Marcus Garvey did not do much to impact the message of his movement. This could only be true if Garvey’s message was solely the installation of local politicians in times when except for Ethiopia, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Haiti all the nations in which people of recent African blood were to be found were colonies of European powers. Presently, there are attempts to seek exoneration for Marcus Garvey both in the US and his island home Jamaica. One hopes these efforts will succeed. Indeed, these false charges did tarnish Garvey’s reputation and slowed significantly his movement. His primary objective was seeing prosperity for people of African descent; something divisions of organizations like the United Nations today seek to achieve with the objective of reducing poverty. Through a raft of organizations the wealthier countries give development aid to poorer countries today. A slew of non-profit organizations are actively in pursuit of development/empowerment/poverty alleviation (differences exist in the philosophy of each approach) initiatives today, and some private individuals are on the loose with the next idea as to how to get your money to reduce poverty and develop Africa and Africans globally. The question therefore is what was so wrong with Marcus Garvey’s efforts to empower people of African descent and move them out of this poverty we are witness to today? Did this level of poverty have to exist among Africans today? 1 of 5 IRIEMAG.COM Prosperity Derailed And Denied Tony Martin in his book Race First identifies three key planks of Garvey’s philosophy – pride in self, self-reliance and nationhood. It is useful to note that Garvey’s ideas were articulated as a response to the peculiar circumstances of people of African descent globally at that point in time. At that time, many thought their blackness inferior, they owned nothing and they were all subjects of European nations or nationals. Garvey therefore set about to address this, and in so doing was unabashed that underlying any success of his efforts must be an answer to the question of how Africa and its Diaspora address their economic condition. Marcus Garvey is quoted as saying: “Be assured of this, that in the African’s rise to wealth will come the adjustment of most of the wrongs inflicted upon him. We must have wealth in culture, wealth in education and solidly wealth of economic values.” “The thing that counts in the world is money, it is material wealth ... we are determined to get our portion ... and when we get it to the extent we want it, we know that there will be no more color line.” “Wealth is strength, wealth is power, wealth is influence, wealth is justice, is liberty, is real human rights. The system of our world politics suggests such, and as a fact it is.” As with managing any process to achieve the objectives of a program it must be broken up into smaller components. Marcus Garvey’s movement was a peculiarly crafted response to bring about African and African Diaspora prosperity in its time and had given focus to the areas of the black experience. His response gave rise to a very complex and powerful organization of black people at a time the world was not prepared to accommodate them. Therein lies the reason for the smear campaign that would eventually derail Garvey’s movement. 2 of 5 IRIEMAG.COM Had this not been the case, just imagine how much further along his program of prosperity for people of African descent would have been. Indeed, do we expect that the UN, development aid, or celebrities will accomplish these for the poor black people around the world today? If the belief is that the rest of the world will end the poverty in Africa and its Diaspora then that is the first shred of evidence you have that the impact of Garvey’s message is diminished. There Is A Better Way It is in this context that I agree with economist Dambisa Moyo’s 2009 book Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working And How There Is A Better Way For Africa. Ms. Moyo’s point in her book is that we have to insist on an alternative to an Aid-only model of development, which is what currently dominates. She argues that aid discourages the addressing of critical internal issues such as trade within Africa, the movement of people within the continent, the challenges of the need for visas, and the exorbitant costs to move within Africa (and the African Diaspora). She says issues such as this need to be addressed if the African nations are to see meaningful development. Interestingly, many African Diaspora economies like Jamaica and others in the Caribbean are challenged with similar issues. From Moyo’s reading one could reasonably conclude that Africa’s problem is not primarily moral, nor is it primarily political as in the systems of governance, rather it’s considerably economic. Indeed, this is the conclusion Marcus Garvey arrived at by 1919. Why then have we missed it? Dambisa Moyo’s solutions are predicated on making capital work in the context of the market. No doubt, they are more technical than Marcus Garvey would have articulated, but the essential principles remain. Grow African Wealth Among the many things Marcus Garvey addressed was the role thrift, wealth and enterprise must 3 of 5 IRIEMAG.COM play in the life of Africans globally. In one of his speeches to the African American community in 1919 he said: “If we are to rise as a great ... national force we must start business enterprises of our own; we must build ships and start trading with ourselves between America, the West Indies and Africa. We must put up factories in all great manufacturing centers of this country, to give employment to the thousands of men and women ... we must manufacture boots clothing and those things that people need, not only our people in America, the West Indies and Africa, but the people of China ... India ... South and Central America, and even the white man. He has for hundreds of years made a market for his goods among Africans ... therefore, Africans have the same right to make a market among white people for his manufactured goods.” These words resonate deeply with sentiments that favor a belief in the market and capitalism, which many others including the Chinese have come to favor much later than 1919. After all, it was Marcus Garvey who said, “Capitalism is necessary to the progress of the world, and those who unreasonably and wantonly oppose or fight against it are enemies to human advancement.” His rationale for this position was that although the system is ruthless it was the one that allowed the disenfranchised blacks the best chance at self-empowerment. I do agree. 4 of 5 IRIEMAG.COM Among Marcus Garvey’s thoughts on the accumulation of wealth we can find the following quotes: “All wealth is good. God created all wealth and never created poverty. The man who is poor in the world has created his own poverty... What I mean ... is that you were born rich with the senses. All the wealth in the world today is the product of man’s senses.” FOLLOW “The African must become wealthy; he must become a master of finance, a captain of Kam-Au Amen industry, a director of science and art, an exponent of literature; he must develop a concrete philosophy, and with combination of all these he must impress himself... upon the civilization of the world.” “To the contented soul, wealth is the stepping-stone to perfection; to the miser it is the nearest avenue to hell. I would prefer to be honestly wealthy, than miserably poor.” Unfortunately, with the passing of time and the onset of modernization, not enough has changed with regards to the fundamental conditions Garvey initially sought to address. As a result, many of his ideas are still useful and many of the principles he espoused remain applicable to the African development cause. I will close with the following Marcus Garvey quote: “When it is considered that twentieth century civilization pays homage and worships peoples and nations only on the basis of wealth, it should not be surprising to under- stand why the African is universally ignored...With all that may be said of the morals and ethics of our time, carrying with it the suggestion of rights, liberty and justice the whole fabric is based upon economic wealth ... so it behooves the African to think in terms of economic expansion through which he may endorse the consideration that is necessary for his political, social and other betterment.” *Quotes taken from the book Marcus Garvey Said..

Load more

  89

Copy Link