KWANZAA
Day #7: January 1
Nguzo Saba
Kwanzaa Principle #7
Day of Meditation
Imani (ee-MAH-nee)
Faith
"To believe, with
all our heart, in our Creator, our people, our parents, our
teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our
struggle."
The Seventh Principle is faith which is essentially a profound
belief in and commitment to all that is of value to us as a
family, community, people and culture. In the context of African
spirituality, it begins with a belief in the Creator and in the
positiveness of the creation and logically leads to a belief in
the essential goodness and possibility of the human personality.
For in all African spiritual traditions from Egypt on, it is
taught that we are in the image of the Creator and thus capable of
ultimate righteousness and creativity through self-mastery and
development in the context of positive support. therefore, a faith
in ourselves is key here, faith in our capacity as humans to live
righteously, self-correct, support, care for and be responsible
for each other and eventually create the just and good society.
Faith in ourselves is key.
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Especially must we believe in the value and validity, the
righteousness and significance of our struggle for liberation and
a higher level of human life. This must be tied to our belief in
our capacity to assume and carry out with dignity and decisiveness
the role [Frantz] Fanon and history has assigned us. And that role
is to set in motion a new history of humankind and in the company
of other oppressed and third World peoples pose a new paradigm of
human society and human relations.
Fanon says we can do anything as long as we don't do two basic
things:
1) don't try to catch up with Europe [afterall, where is it going
- swinging between spiritual and nuclear annihilation]; and
2) don't imitate them so that we become "obscene caricatures" of
them.
We must, he says invent, innovate, reach inside ourselves and dare
"set afoot a new man and woman." The world and our people are
waiting for something new, more beautiful and beneficial from us
than what a past of oppression has offered us. Let us not imitate
or be taught by our oppressors. Let us dare struggle, free
ourselves politically and culturally and raise images above the
earth that reflect our capacity for human progress and greatness.
This is the challenge and burden of our history which assumes and
requires a solid faith.
We must, then, have faith in ourselves, in our leaders, teachers,
parents and in the righteousness and victory of our struggle,
faith that through hard work, long struggle and a whole lot of
love and understanding, we can again step back on the stage of
human history as a free, proud and productive people. It is in
this context that we can surely speak our own special truth to the
world an make our own unique contribution to the forward flow of
human history.
Practice
Imani
every day!
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