AEDRMC & SMWeCGEC Newsletter 2019
Welcome to the Kwanzaa season newsletter from the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee (AEDRMC) and the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide! Campaign (SMWeCGEC)
In this edition:
• Introduction – We cannot march forever!
• Stop the Maangamizi! Campaign Update
• The theme for this year’s March
• Call to Action for monthly public actions
• Public Meeting Thursday 23rd January 2020 – Brixton
• Introducing the Maangamizi Education Trust
• Contacts
Introduction
We cannot march forever!
As we approach a new year we are also powering up towards #Reparations2020 from now leading up to 1st August and beyond and it will be a year to remember! This is year 7 – but WE CANNOT MARCH FOREVER! We are embracing this year’s theme of Kwanzaa, Living Kwanzaa and the Seven Principles: An All-Seasons Celebration and Practice of the Good.” Implicit in the theme is the question of how we make Kwanzaa and by extension the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March more than an annual event, or indeed our reparations activism an episodic engagement!
As we immerse ourselves in this celebration of our Afrikan identity, history and proud heritage during the Kwanzaa season, we must also recall the strategies and tactics of our Ancestors and so see the Nguzo Saba in a reparatory justice framework for action:
Umoja – Unity in action towards Nation Building – Maatubuntman in Ubuntudunia – our future vision of Pan-Afrikan Nationhood & Internationalism.
Kujichagulia – Defining for ourselves what it means to be a repaired Nation/people and securing the means for guarantees of non-repetition of Maangamizi Criminality.
Ujima – Knowing what part you can play however big or small – taking personal responsibility for your part in our collective reparatory goals – one milestone being the All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth and Reparatory Justice (APPCITARJ) called for in the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’petition.
Ujaama – Investing in and organising for our own liberation and as well as contributing resources to collective goals. One of such goals are the goals objectives and activities of the SMWeCGEC whose aims can be found here. The Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March (AEDRM) – also requires your investment to fulfil its aims of raising awareness of our self-determined goals whilst also working with the SMWeCGEC to hold the Maangamizi Criminals to account in the process of resisting “the plunder, pollution and depletion of the shared resources of Mother Earth and the monopoly of wealth for the few at the expense of the shared good of society and the world that belong to all in common.”
Nia – Purpose and keeping focused on our goals. We are on a long journey started by our Ancestors. We are given our lives for a purpose and that purpose can only be to serve our own collective interests of reparation, reconstruction, recovery and rejuvenation. We must work to build our own or others will have us building theirs!
Kuumba – Our creativity can do much more than entertain! Let us use it to alert the world to our quest for reparatory justice – let it illuminate and amplify the voices of Freedom, Justice, Liberty or Death!
Imani – Together we can build our trust confidence in each other so we are no longer defeated in the race of life and finally stand tall as a people who have regained their power and authority on the world stage. Can we do? Yes we can!
Indeed, our Ancestors called us in Swahili, not only watu – human beings, but also walimwengu – world beings. They also taught us the Maatian ethical imperative of serudj ta, to constantly repair, renew and remake the world, making it more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it, and leaving it as a rich legacy for those who come after us.
So, if we are to utilise the Nguzo Saba beyond seven days we need to call on our Ancestors to furnish us with the courage and fortitude that they possessed so we can progress our goals. Marching will not be enough, letter writing will not be enough – these tactics have to be developed into seriously disruptive strategies & tactics that put the noble cause of Reparations on the world stage – are you ready for that?
Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide! Campaign (SMWeCGEC) Update
The SMWeCGEC has been busy:
• Supporting individuals who have been lobbying their MPs with the 3 demands on the back of the SMWeCGEC postcard.
• Interfacing with politicians and political parties.
• Working with the Global Afrikan Peoples Parliament to build support for the Global Afrikan Family Bloc of the Reparations March.
• Making international connections in pursuit of our Pan-Afrikan reparatory justice agenda.
• Working with the AEDRMC on the programme of action up to and on 1st Mosiah (August) 2020.
• Building alliances with various constituencies concerned with ecocide and its impact on our genocide.
You can find out more about the SMWeCGEC here.
Our 2020 Theme
It cannot be emphasised enough that there will be no reparatory justice on a dead planet! Afrikan people have been the chief custodians of flora and fauna and all the earth’s natural resources that are now at risk due to the Maangamizi Criminality of Western imperialism. So this year’s THEME for our reparatory activism AND the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March on 1st August 2020 is: Seizing the Time to Stop the Maangamizi – Planet Repairs NOW!
With our partner the SMWeCGEC, we will be working with you, our allies and supporters to raise awareness of the links between Ecocide and Genocide and the imminent risk to Our People, Our Continent and Our World! Read more about this here.
Public Meeting: Thursday 23rd January 2020 – Karibu Centre Brixton 5pm
4C (4°C) PLUS WORLD ECOCIDE ALARM: Now is Our Time to Seize Together for Planet Repairs!
This is the theme for Brixton Thursday 23rd January 2020 Special Meeting from 5.30pm-10pm
The SMWeCGEC is supporting the co-organisation of this event by the Extinction Rebellion Internationalist Solidarity Network in United Kingdom (XRISNUK), together with XR Scientists and the XR Movement of Movements Working Group. The event is being hosted at the Karibu Education Centre by Brixtonics@Brixton, one of the local community group partners of the XRISNUK Global Justice Rebellion Roadshow (GJRR).
The purpose of the event is to discuss and launch the GJRR 4C Plus World Ecocide Alarm Programme (GJRR-4C+WEAP) of the XRISNUK. This is an opportunity to kickstart the New Year with a special XR Internationalist Solidarity event, led by Afrikan Heritage Community and Global South Diasporan Activists that will highlight the urgency of accelerating campaigns like Stop the Maangamizi! before Planet Earth burns beyond 4C out of control to wipe out all Life.
So, the GJRR-4C+WEAP will see XRISNUK advance its Movement of Movements’ collaboration with our partners engaged in building networks like XR Affinity All-Afrikan Network (XRAAAN), XR Affinity Network of Asia (XRANA) and XR Red de Afinidad de Abya Yala de Sur (XRRAAYS) in South Abya Yala (South America), to develop further their own aspects of the programme, devoted to glocally raising even higher the Worldwide alarm about the worsening of the Genocide/Ecocide being experienced right now, mostly by the Majority World members of our Family of Humanity, with the escalating danger of a 4C Plus World in the very near future!
Attendance at the event is strictly upon XRISNUK invitation only because of limited space, security and other necessary considerations.
For more information contact Bro Kofi Mawuli Klu by WhatsApp 07960958456.
Introducing the Maangamizi Education Trust
The Maangamizi Educational Trust was set up as the charitable arm of the ‘Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign in 2018 to:
• educate and raise awareness and understanding amongst the public of the Maangamizi its causes, contemporary impacts and redress including endeavours of community repair at local, national and international levels.
• provide advocacy/advice/information about the racism of Afriphobia and other manifestations of the Maangamizi; and
• develop teaching resources and deliver educational programmes about the Maangamizi and initiatives to stop and redress it.
One of our current projects is working with the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Futures Institute as a community partner to co-create a publicly accessible digital Reparations Archive. This archive will narrate the wealth of work that has been undertaken by UK-based activists since 1987 in their struggle to achieve reparative justice for the enslavement of Afrikan people. The project builds on the strengths of an existing collaboration between academics and activists, funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) research networking grant (May 2017-Feb 2019), in recognition of the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent which has led to the establishment of the International Network of Scholars and Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR).
Call to Action
Do we have the courage and determination of our Ancestors that we pour libation to?
Do we have what it takes to take their works to another level?
The time has long since come for us to be making great sacrifice to build on the legacy of the few freedoms and privileges we have today as a result of the efforts of our indomitable Ancestors.
We are calling on YOU to join us making our quest for reparatory justice louder, more visible, more dread and terrible in the eyes of the Maangamizi Criminals who continue their actions right under our noses. Are you ready to enact your #Reparations2020 Vision? Leading up to the Reparations March on 1st Mosiah (August) we intend to bring it to them on a monthly basis – and we need you! More details will be released in the near future but firstly you are advised to attend the meeting in Brixton on 23rd January to find out more contact
Photo ©copyright John Matthews Photography
Donate
Please give to support the work of our 365/24-7 Reparations Campaign and to the 5K cost of organising the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March. You can donate via the Reparations March 2020 Go Fund Me link.
Contacts
The contacts for the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee are:
Website: http://www.reparationsmarch.org/
Email: info@reparationsmarch.org
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ReparationsmarchUK/
Facebook Group: The Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March
Tel: 07922 035 446
Twitter: @reparationmarch
The contacts for the ‘Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign can be found here.
stopthemaangamizi.com 