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Eja: Your post on the selective veneration of African icons to the status of "Krst" was as usual quite provocative. I have often contemplated that very subject. You perhaps forgot to mention Martin Luther King,jr. someone, whose legacy has been hijacked by sycophants like Bill Cosby and the brown-nosed members of the NAACP. How can a bunch of self-indulgent, self-serving charlatans claim to uphold his ideals, when it is quite clear that they reached no further than the foothill, while he climbed to the top of the mountain. Many of us may not have agreed with his methods but his goals and ideals were sound, and he had the courage to die for them.
Similarly, many people claim an affiliation with "Rasta" simply because they want to "abuse" marijuana. This speaks to your analogy of the "cocoa leaf"
How effective are the implements, if one has lost or never understood the purpose of the ritual? How many can claim to have communed with the ancestors on one of their "trips"? How many even believe or know that our ancestors are available for guidance?
Bantu: It's good to have you back, and in good health.
Some of the topics in this thread were previously discussed in another thread concerning the prevalence of inter-racial unions among rastafari brothers. It provoked quite a few extremes as well. I remember sharing some of my personal history with you. Like Ayinde, I believe that only "true" Africans can and should articulate the discourse of the African struggle. The rest of us have too many schisms to overcome.
Until Africans reach a concensus that their "Anu" inheritance is anterior, superior and worth dying for, more than anything that they have inherited from their "mongrel" neanderthal cousins, our future survival will remain in doubt. The very place of our "origins" Lake Tanganyika, in the heart of deepest Africa, the Congo, is under attack by the enemy from all sides, and from the mouths of our so-called leaders and luminaries, not a word of protest.
I await the re-establishment of our warrior class. Like all the revered sages of our history have taught us: "to everything there is a turn/time." And in the words of Bro. Valentino, it is time for iman to put on i's boots and march to the defense of i-roots.
"Stay up Zimbabwe"
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