2019 Hand-In of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Petition

Posted on August 11, 2019 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

London UK 1st August 2019 (L to R) Cleo Alberta Lake, Lazarus Tamana , Hon. Kweme Abubaka and Dr Barryl Biekman present the ‘Stop The Maangamizi!’ Petition calling for the establishment of the All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth & Reparatory Justice for the Afrikan Hellacaust at 10 Downing Street as part of the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March on Emancipation Day, . Emancipation Day marks the anniversary of the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act.

The above image is the © copyright of photojournalist Thabo Jaiyesimi and must be accredited as such.

Please note, only copies of the additional 2,828 signatures collected between last year (14,590) and this year (17,418) were handed in with a copy of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Petition. Every year we tend to copy the same petitions and re-submit them with additional signatures collected. For environmental reasons, it was determined that we would only hand in the additional signatures collected this year until we reach 100,000 signatures that will be handed in all together when that figure is reached. Or in the alternative that the lobbying efforts of MPs and other elected officials via the ‘Stop The Maangamizi!’ Postcard yield the desired results. However, the SMWeCGEC is not relying on securing 100,000 to secure the campaign objectives, as ultimately reparatory justice will be effected, secured and taken by our own People’s Power, supported by other People’s of Conscience as well as our non-Afrikan Allies as part of PRIM-building.

In total 17,418 people have now signed the petition, this includes those who sign the online petition and the paper version.

Although 6 Petitioners were present as identified in the covering letter to the UK pRIME Minister which accompanied the petition, only 4 of the 6-member delegation were able to hand in the petition this year due to 2 members of the delegation unfortunately forgetting their ID.

This is a link to info about the petition hand-ins in the three preceding years:

2018

2017

2016

This is a copy of the letter that accompanied the 2015 petition hand-in:

STOP THE MAANGAMIZI LETTER TO DAVID CAMERON 2015

PARCOE Promotes the Reparatory Justice Work of the ‘Stop The Maangamizi!’Campaign in Jamaica

Posted on June 24, 2019 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

Report by Esther Stanford-Xosei, 29 June 2019

Co-Vice Chair, Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE
Coordinator-General, ‘Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign (SMWeCGEC)
Spokesperson, Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee (AEDRMC)

Since last year, when Brother Steven Golding spoke at the 5th annual Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March, we stayed in contact. He got in touch earlier this year about the possibility of me visiting Jamaica to do a lecture in recognition of the 2015 – 2024 United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent. Such a trip was finally organised to take place at the end of May 2019.

From the 29th May to 5th June 2019, I was invited by Brother Steven to deliver a couple of public lectures on Reparations. This included doing a public lecture on the ‘The Reparations Challenge‘ at the UNIA Jamaica Mass Meeting, which took place at Liberty Hall, as well as being the first international speaker to deliver the annual Tacky Day Lecture in the Parish of St. Mary themed ‘Chief Tacky 1760 – 2060: The Struggle Then, The Struggle Now‘.

When I arrived in Jamaica, I was pleasantly surprised to be met at the airport by Sister Marva Pringle-Ximinnies from the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment & Sports, Brother Steven as well as Brother Derrick Robinson aka ‘Black X’. I did not know at the time but Black X had actually walked 57+ miles from Port Maria in the parish of St. Mary to Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston to officially welcome me to Jamaica as the international speaker for the Tacky Day Lecture.

This is a message that Black X had sent out to various networks before my arrival:

Dear friends, Today Tuesday May 28 at 3pm, I will be embarking on a 24 and a half hours walk from the Tacky Monument in Port Maria St Mary Jamaica to the Norman Manley Airport in Kingston, to be a part of the team that will be welcoming our Guest Speaker for Tacky Day to Jamaica! she is due to arrive in Jamaica from England (UK) at 3.30pm. Her Name is Esther Stanford-Xosei a Pan-African Speaker, a leading voice in the global Struggle in the call for Reparations to be paid for the atrocious and the beyond repair damage that was done to our African fore Fathers and Mothers. So it is with great conviction of duty in honourable memory of the Great Chief Tacky that in our Ancestors Name, I will challenge this 24 and a half hours walk to the Norman Manley Airport in Kingston from Port Maria St Mary. Thank you for your support.

Derrick Black X Robinson, Chairman
Tacky Foundation, Tacky Heritage – Pan-African Garden Of Assembly 1760

The first public lecture I did was on Sunday 2nd June, 2019 at the famous Liberty Hall at 76 King Street, Kingston which was (at one point) the Hon. Marcus Garvey’s headquarters and that of the UNIA-ACL. The U.N.I.A’s constitution required each UNIA to have a Liberty Hall, which was its headquarters. Jamaica’s Liberty Hall was the centre of activities for the Kingston division of The UNIA. The two-storey building was the first meeting hall in Jamaica that was fully owned and operated by people of Afrikan heritage. First opened in 1923, the site has been restored to serve as a museum of the life and work of Marcus Garvey, who was the first man to be declared an official National Hero of Jamaica.

Programme for the Mass Meeting

This is a link to an Instagram post of Emprezz @emprezzgolding with a video clip from my lecture at the UNIA Mass Meeting.

https://www.pictame.com/media/2060328762427461483_28515377

Reception Hosted by St. Mary Chamber of Commerce

On Monday 3rd June 2019, I was hosted at a reception organised by the St Mary Chamber of Commerce, Agriculture & Industry. I spoke at their meeting about the relevance of reparations to addressing local community development issues and challenges spoken about at the meeting.

I was a guest at the St. Mary Chamber of Commerce Meeting & Reception

Tacky Day Commemorations

Before I come unto the commemoration, it is important for me to say a little bit about Chief Tacky. Tacky’s War or the Easter Rebellion of Port Maria, one of the bloodiest revolts that took place in Jamaica, was an uprising of enslaved Afrikans from the central region of Ghana then referred to as Koromantse which started on Easter Sunday 1760 and went on until July 1760. The Rebellion broke out in St. Mary and spread throughout most of the country. The leader of the rebellion, Tacky (Akan spelling: Takyi), was originally from the Fante ethnic group in West Afrika and had been a Paramount Chief in Fante land (in the Central region of present-day Ghana) before being captured and sold into slavery after the Koromantse Wars. Tacky was subsequently enslaved on the Frontier Estate, in Jamaica where he was subsequently made foreman. However, he used this position to plan and influence some fellow enslaved Afrikans on his estate and neighbouring Trinity Estate to revolt. He, along with the Asante Queen Nanny or Nana, both, with the support of fellow rebels, planned to defeat the British and all enslavers and make Jamaica a separate and independent Black country. They began by seizing control of Frontier and the neighbouring Trinity plantation, killing the masters or estate managers and freeing the enslaved before heading to the nearby town of Port Maria.

One of the most-well known people seeking to gain greater recognition of Tacky is Black X, Chairman of the Tacky Heritage Group, who is truly a legend in Jamaica and is doing excellent work to help conscientise the Jamaican public about the importance of Chief Tacky. A waterfall close to the cave where Takyi and his fellow rebels planned the revolt was named Tacky Falls and is currently open to visitors. A school has also been named after Chief Tacky.

At the end of the lecture, I was presented with a picture by Chelsea Chin, administrator for Dr Morais Guy, J.P., Member of Parliament for Central St. Mary.

These are some of the pictures from the Tacky Day Commemorations, it was truly a beautiful day. Local MPs, the Mayor, business leaders, community members as well as children from 8 local schools in St. Mary attended the lecture!

Pics courtesy of Steven Golding.

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Left to Right: Steven Golding, Dr Morais Guy, J.P., MP, Central St. Mary, Dr Norman Dunn, BH, J.P., MP South East, St. Mary, Derrick Robinson aka ‘Black X’

This is a link to Minister Olivia Grange’s speech that was read out by Dr Norman Dunn, BH, (M), J.P. Member of Parliament, South East, St. Mary:

HONOURABLE OLIVIA GRANGE CD MP SPEECH TACKY DAY 2019

Esther Stanford-Xosei with Derrick Robinson aka ‘Black X’ at Tacky Day Lecture

Make Chief Tacky A National Hero Resolution

Since my return to the UK, I have been forwarded the following text of resolution to be put forward at the local Parish Council in St. Mary on Thursday 11th July 2019:

MAKE CHIEF TACKY A NATIONAL HERO OF JAMAICA

On Easter Sunday, in the year 1760 in Jamaica in the Parish of Saint Mary, the great rebel leader called Chief Tacky led our ancestors in a rebellion against the establishment of chattel slavery in the country. They raided the English garrison at Fort Haldane and attacked the estates at Frontier, Trinity, Ballard’s Valley, Esher, among others. Tacky’s revolt/war spread to several parishes across the country and lasted for over 18 months even when they thought it had ended. The brave Chief Tacky lost his own life but his vision and actions had struck a blow for freedom that helped to hasten the end of the act of inhumanity and the bondage of chattel slavery. Ultimately, history has proven that freedom was irreversible from that point on.

As a result of this trip, PARCOE decided to update our banner/flyer to include Chief Tacky and to also lobby for his inclusion as one of the revered Ancestors commemorated as part of the Ancestors Bloc of the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March.

In addition, Esther was a panellist for the UWI ‘African Liberation Day Lecture’ on 29th May 2019 featuring keynote speaker Dr Julius Garvey who spoke to the theme ‘Moving Towards A United Africa: Fulfilling Marcus Garvey’s Dream‘.

Meeting with Minister Olivia Grange & Representatives of the NCR

Another important aspect of the trip was the meeting I got to have with representatives of the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment & Sport, including the Hon. Olivia (Babsy) Grange, MP, CD, Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment & Sport and Barbara Blake-Hannah; in addition to meeting with several members of the National Council on Reparations (NCR), in particular, NCR Co-Chair Mrs Laleta Davis-Mattis (who attended the Reparations Challenge Lecture), Mr Frank Phipps, Q.C., Lord Anthony Gifford, Q.C., Attorney Bert Samuels, Dr Jahlani Niaah, Dr Michael Barnett and Ras Ho-Shing. Barbara Blake-Hannah was also in attendance at the meeting with members of the NCR and Minister Grange.

I did not get to meet or speak with NCR Co-Chair Professor Verene Shepherd on my trip.

Pics courtesy of Steven Golding.

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During the meeting, Minister Grange updated me on some of the developments taking place pertaining to reparations, including the work being championed under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture in relation to the absolution of the resistance efforts of National Heroes. Minister Grange made a special presentation to me of a copy of The National Heroes and Other Freedom Fighters (Absolution from Criminal Liability in Respect of Specified Events) Acts, 2018 No.2

The following is a copy of the front and back page of the act of the act. A link to the act can be found below:

The National Heroes and Other Freedom Fighters (Absolution from Criminal Liability in Respect of Specified Events) Acts, 2018 No.2

In the meeting I also shared information about what reparations activism was taking place by the UK contingent of the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR). The main updates I shared pertained to:

The campaigning efforts of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Campaign and its partner the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee towards the establishment of the All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth & Reparatory Justice, (APPCITARJ), and responses received so far from the Office of the UK Prime Minister and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
The alliances being forged by elevating a reparatory justice approach to tackling the climate and ecological crisis which will disproportionately impact on our communities in Afrika and the Caribbean; highlighting developments made in this regard by the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Campaign developing an affinity with Extinction Rebellion (XR). As a result of the advocacy and involvement of reparationists in the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Campaign, this has resulted in the subsequent development of the CEE the Truth Campaign by some members of XR and the emerging Climate & Ecological Independents championing Planet Repairs and reparations, as one of their core demands of their political manifesto in the 2019 European Parliamentary Elections.
The importance of state and non-state actors, recognising their distinct but possibly complementary roles and working together on the common cause of effecting and securing reparatory justice by seeking to join up actions and initiatives where possible. An example being the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March which takes place on 1st August.
In seeking accountability from European nation states, the importance of factoring engagement strategies with country diasporas living in the UK/Europe as well as the wider Afrikan Diaspora communities in Europe. This being necessary to ensure that there was harmonisation between distinct reparations strategies and tactics by state and non-state actors.
Likewise, the necessity of also seeking to influence European and other civil society populations in Europe and win support from them in standing in solidarity with the cause of reparatory justice. In this regard, it was pointed out that the notion of Britain and Europe coming to help “clean up the monumental mess of Empire” they left in the Caribbean is not being taken seriously or endearing support from wider constituencies in the UK. This is largely because it is clear, even to many white people, that the British Parliamentary System is in crisis, with Brexit and the emergence of Extinction Rebellion which is challenging the inadequacies of governance and failure of moral leadership of British parliamentarians who have failed to act to avert the climate & ecological crisis etc. The popular overstanding being how can Britain be asked to clean up the mess in the Caribbean when it cannot clean up the mess in its own back-yard?

Meeting with Minister Mike Henry

I also met with the Hon. Minister Mike Henry, MP, CD, Minister without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister of Jamaica who spoke to me about the legal action he was pursuing against Queen Elizabeth II, as part of a reparations strategy, which is further explained in the newspaper articles section below.

I raised similar points made in the meeting with Minister Grange and members of the NCR, in particular, regarding:

The importance of those in the Caribbean linking with country diasporas and the wider Afrikan Diaspora in UK/Europe as well as paying greater attention to winning over those of European ancestry to be in solidarity with our cause of reparatory justice.
Us as state and non-state actors recognising differing strategy and tactics even when making legal and political challenges to the British State and seeking to have dialogue with each other and share information other about these different approaches so what we do does not conflict.

On behalf of the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee, I thanked Minister Henry for the solidarity message he gave for the 2018 Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March.

Minister Mike Henry made a special presentation to me of a copy of his book ‘Many Rivers To Cross: A Political Journey of Audacious Hope‘ (2013).

Pics courtesy of Steven Golding & Ras Ho-Shing.

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Newspaper Articles

The following are the newspaper articles about my visit:

This article clipping is taken from section C10 of the Gleaner on Monday 3, June, 2019

An online version of the Jamaica Information Service appeared in the Jamaica Observer on Thursday 30 May, 2019

Meeting with Lord Anthony Gifford

Due to the fact that Anthony Gifford could not attend the meeting with Minister Grange and members of the NCR, he invited me to visit with him. I was accompanied by Steven Golding and I discussed the work being done here in the UK, particularly with reference to some of the new developments on the work being done by representatives of the UK ISMAR to broaden constituents of engagement and influence in relation to reparatory justice through working with Extinction Rebellion Internationalist Solidarity Network (XRISN) and The CEE The Truth Campaign Climate & Ecological Emergency Independents.

I explained that The CEE Independents have adopted reparations as part of the core demands and there was much scope for those in the Caribbean also doing more to link the struggle for reparatory justice to the growing consciousness of the necessity of reparations for climate and ecological breakdown. I reiterated the messages given at public lectures on the importance of those in the national councils and committees for reparations in the Caribbean recognising the importance of the country and wider Afrikan Diasporas living in Europe and secondly the importance of messaging which can also win hearts and minds of allies of European and other non-Afrikan ancestries in Europe. This is a Gleaner newspaper article which Lord Gifford wrote aspects of which he has subsequently notified me were influenced by some of our discussions.

Since returning to the UK, I shared info regarding a recent interview with music artist and write Gaika given by Leader of the UK Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn where he speaks about his support for reparations to former colonies to combat climate change with Steven Golding and Lord Gifford which in my view affirms the approach that we in PARCOE and the ‘Stop The Maangamizi!’ Campaign have long been championing in relation to ‘Planet Repairs’ and the importance of including reparations for climate and ecological destruction (ecocide) as part of the advocacy strategies coming out of Afrika and the Caribbean.

Visit to Pre-View Windush Murals

I visited Studio 174, a Kingston based Art Academy in downtown Kingston, to preview a series of murals being finalised as a mobile exhibit featuring a series of murals to honour the Windrush Generation; people from Jamaica and the Caribbean who left the region, beginning in 1948, on The Empire Windrush. This exhibit is part of the Paint Up Ya Creative Space Initiative of the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment & Sports in partnership with the British Council. Some of the discussions myself and Steven Golding had with the artistic director and artists was the possibility of such an exhibit of murals to come to the UK and possibly feature as part of the events leading up to the annual Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March.

Pics courtesy of Steven Golding

Media Interviews

I did the following interviews:

‘Rootsology’ show on Roots 96.1 FM,
‘Beyond the Headlines’ show on RJR 94 FM,
‘Talk Up Radio’ show on Nation-wide 90 FM
‘Sunrise’ show on CVM TV.

Unfortunately, although I contacted Pan-Afrikanist Activist-Journalist and host of the ‘Running African’ show on IRIE FM, Ka’Bu Ma’at Kheru ahead of the trip, with a view to meeting up during her visit, unfortunately I did not get to connect or speak with Ka’Bu on my trip. Ka’Bu was also the initiator of the ‘UofG Consult With Grass – Root Reparation Movements NOT Colonial Institutions!’ Petition on change.org (and also supported by the SMWeCGEC).

On the tentative schedule I received before my trip, it was planned that I was to do an interview on Thursday 30th May 2019 at 3pm on IRIE FM ‘Stepping Razor’ show with Mutabaruka and on Sunday 2nd June on IRIE FM at 7am on the ‘Running Africa Forum’ Radio with Ka’bu Ma’at Kheru. However, this changed with the updated schedule I received when I arrived in Jamaica. I was notified that Ka’bu had to travel urgently so had cancelled her show on 30th May.

Pics courtesy of Steven Golding.

Linking with Empress Esther of the EABIC ‘Bobo Shanti’

Through a link provided by Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March Committee, Co- Vice Chair, Prophet Jah B, I made contact with Empress Esther from the Ethiopia Africa Black International Congress (EABIC) on my visit. Although we did not get to meet in person, we did have discussions about the need for further outreach and connections with Rastafari community members and other Afrikan heritage communities in the Montego Bay Area who often do not get to go to Pan-Afrikan and Reparations focused events and activities in Kingston.

Courtesy Call on Permanent Secretary, Mr Denzil Thorpe

The last stop I made before leaving Jamaica, en route to the airport, was to return to the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment & Sport for a curtesy call on Mr Denzil Thorpe, Permanent Secretary for the Ministry. I was accompanied by my Steven Golding and Black X. Permanent Secretary Denzil Thorpe also made a special presentation to me of NCR memorabilia and we spoke about my visit to Jamaica.

Pics courtesy of Steven Golding & Marva Pringle-Ximminies

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Thank you Letter

Stop The Maangamizi Campaign: Representing Our Cause Ourselves

Posted on May 13, 2019 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

Greetings Supporters of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign (SMWeCGEC)

We in the SMWeCGEC wish to notify you of some exciting developments in our ability to build influence for achieving our cause as highlighted in the aims of the campaign.

SMWeCGEC co-initiator, Kofi Mawuli Klu has decided to champion programmatic aspects of the SMWeCGEC as part of standing as an independent candidate in the forthcoming European Parliamentary elections starting on 23rd May 2019. Kofi is one of nine climate and ecological emergency independent candidates who are collectively standing as part of the ‘CEE the Truth’ Campaign, (#CEEtheTruth).

Although we in the SMWeCGEC have advocated multi-layered tactics in achieving our goals, which include lobbying of MPs via the ‘Stop The Maangamizi!’ Postcard Campaign, we cannot wait for people who are in mainstream political parties to act in support of our cause. They are too slow in doing so! Whereas the official British Government position is “we do not believe reparations are the answer”; the opposition Labour Party support reparations, but have their own agenda as to how they feel they can address the matter. Their agenda, which has been highlighted here disregards Afrikan Heritage Community agency in shaping what reparations programmes are in our own self-determined best interests and therefore it is questionable in whose interests such plans really are. In reality, it flies in the face of our often repeated principle, which has been highlighted during the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations Marches: ‘Nothing About Us Without Us!’. So just like the Ruling Party in the British Government, the official opposition and their representatives, are also refusing to have a dialogue with us in terms of taking to address the goals on the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Postcard, hearing the voices of those of us who every year sign the ‘Stop The Maangamizi!’ Petition and mobilise as part of the wider SMWeCGEC, as well as those who participate in the annual Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March.

Rather, we in the SMWeCGEC take the view that we cannot rely on others to plead our cause; we must do that for ourselves! In this regard, the SMWeCGEC and the Global Afrikan People’s Parliament has taken steps to further adavance its policy position on electoral politics via the candidacy of Kofi Mawuli Klu as an Independent Climate & Ecological Emergency/Planet Repairs Candidate.

See here for more info about Kofi and other #CEEindependents.

The three core demands of the climate and ecological independents are:

1. The Council of Ministers and the European Parliament must tell the truth and take action to declare a Climate and Ecological Emergency.

2. The Declaration on a Climate and Ecological Emergency must demand a zero carbon Europe by a date no later than 2030.

3. National Citizens Assemblies on Climate & Ecological Justice must be instituted to oversee policy making, including those of Planet Repairs embracing Reparations, and have a leading role in shaping a zero carbon Europe.

Kofi takes into this #CEEtheTruth Campaign, all that represents the perspectives of the SMWeCGEC with emphasis upon Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice as advocated by the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE), in its Planet Repairs meaningfulness. For us this is such an exciting campaign because it links the struggle for effecting and securing Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice with the struggle to end ecocide, hold accountable those responsible for perpetrating environmental crimes and harms and honour human, peoples and Mother Earth Rights by instituting Planet Repairs. This cosmic and holistic approach to reparatory justice (repairs) as highlighted by the Professor Chinweizu conceptual framework on reparations in addition to those ancient Afrikan approaches to repairing, renewing and transforming our World making it much more beautiful than what we found it, such as the Kemetan (ancient Egyptian) verb seruja ta

“Let me begin by noting that reparation is not just about money: it is not even mostly about money; in fact, money is not even one percent of what reparation is about. Reparation is mostly about making repairs. self-made repairs, on ourselves: mental repairs, psychological repairs, cultural repairs, organisational repairs, social repairs, institutional repairs, technological repairs, economic repairs, political repairs, educational repairs, repairs of every type that we need in order to recreate and sustainable black societies….More important than any monies to be received; more fundamental than any lands to be recovered, is the opportunity the reparations campaign offers us for the rehabilitation of Black people, by Black people, for Black people; opportunities for the rehabilitation of our minds, our material condition, our collective reputation, our cultures, our memories, our self-respect, our religious, our political traditions and our family institutions; but first and foremost for the rehabilitation of our minds”

Professor Chinweizi

It is the view of this campaign that in terms of cessation of the current manifestations of the Maangamizi including violations of genocide and ecocide as well as ensuring guarantees of non-repetition. Not only do we have to end genocide against us but we also have to work with other progressive non-Afrikan forces to stop ecocide and also draw them into taking responsibility for repairing Mother Earth, their nations and communities, in order to safeguard the rights of future generations. If not, any gains we make will not be sustainable as they will be undone by disrepaired members of the human family, including those among of us who have been so dehumanised by the Maangamizi that they are incapable of being the reparatory justice change we need to see.

Reparations are the totality of repairs that individuals and groups of people have to do for themselves and for the rest of their communities as well as humanity in order to make amends for the harm that has been done to them by historical and
contemporary wrongs; which have so structurally affected them as to devalue their humanity. In this understanding, reparations are something that individuals and groups of people have to do for themselves, internally and externally and ensure that the wrongs done will not be repeated to themselves, the communities they belong to and the rest of humanity
Kofi Mawuli Klu

Aims three and four of the SMWeCGEC are to:

• Mobilise petition signers/supporters to organise as a community of advocates for ‘Stopping the Maangamizi’ as a force within the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations, (ISMAR);

• Catalyse the development of such a force into an integral part of the Peoples Reparations International Movement (PRIM) to ‘Stop the Maangamizi’, build MAATUBUNTUMAN and establish UBUNTUDUNIA* as the most effective way to prevent its recurrence as well as effect and secure measures of reparatory justice from the ground-up;

Similarly, two of the seven political goals of a Pan-Afrikan reparations strategy that the SMWeCGEC adheres to include measures which:

• Restore Afrikan Sovereignty by redressing with MAATUBUNTUMANDLA (Pan-Afrikan Government of People’s Power) the disrepair in our Power and usher in a fundamental change of the existing world order that would definitively bring about new geopolitical realities such as MAATUBUNTUMAN; the anti-imperialist sovereign Pan-Afrikan Union of Communities/polity of Afrikan People’s Power.

• Institutionalise Maat and ubuntu in People to People internationalist solidarity relationship-building that will advance humanity to a Rendezvous of Victory where UBUNTUDUNIA emerges as a Global Justice ‘World of Many Worlds’ i.e. an equitable multipolar World of Pluriversality.

It is only through effecting and securing Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice that we will be able to ensure that the Maangamizi will not only be stopped but also not repeated.

This a message from Kofi:

Kofi’s political strategy is to help build the new alliance of progressive forces whose politics are rooted in Environmental Justice and all other related issues which marginalised communities, including his own minoritised Afrikan Heritage Communities in and beyond Europe, deem of importance to themselves; and about which no effective remedies have so far been implemented to their satisfaction.

This is a campaign which our Afrikan Heritage Communities and all other marginalised sections of the population in Europe, including migrants, denied their right to be legally present in this part of the world, where the wealth of their nations have been looted and continue to be plundered to enrich privileged groups, ought to see this as their opportunity to build a unifying power that can be flexed to give themselves Substantive Representation; and thereby enable them to effect their own solutions to the problems they are encountering. That is why Kofi’s campaigning is not about elevating himself as being the one who will provide the solutions, instead, he seeks to amplify the voices and actions of those already making efforts to find effective solutions to the problems they are encountering.

Some of our people talk about not engaging because the ‘reds’ (Labour) and ‘blues’ (Conservatives) are two wings of the same bird. Now, particularly for those living in London, there are alternatives. We now have a candidate standing as part of a collective who is pushing a reparations agenda, as per aim three of the core demands of the climate and ecological Independents. The point here is about amplifying voices and getting Afrikan Heritage Communities issues elevated in these spaces. This has not happened before with a genuine pan-Afrikan orientated candidacy not subservient to existing political party lines. We have several MPs and Councillors that look like us but it’s highly questionable as to their efforts to bat for us. Why? They did not stand on any kind of Black, Afrikan or Pan-Afrikan platform and they are not accountable to our Afrikan Heritage Communities. Some think because we looked alike that they represented US. Not so! And they never said they were standing for US. They are firstly accountable to their party and their constituency. Kofi Mawuli Klu has no such constraints. So, if you are in London check out what he is saying and the refreshing approach to electoral politics he is taking.

Until such time please familiarise yourself with the Global Afrikan People’s Parliament Policy Positions and learn more about the principles Kofi is standing for. It’s a start, not the sum total of our political strategies and quests for National Self-Determination. Seeds are being sown. In other places shoots are being watered. This is a process. Be patient and take action.

If you would like to contact Kofi on 07956431498 or email kofi.planetrepairs@gmail.com

For further updates see: https://www.facebook.com/stopthemaangamizi/

In Service

Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide! Campaign International Steering Committee Spearhead Team (ISC-SMWeCGEC)

#StopTheMaangamizi4PlanetRepairs!
#PanAfrikanReparations
#BuildMAATUBUNTUMANinUBUNTUDUNIA!
#NoReparationsOnADeadPlanet
#CEEIndependents

Legacies of Enslavement & Resistance for Rebellion Today

Posted on February 25, 2019 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

On Saturday 24th February 2019 a historic meeting took place in Bristol co-organised by Extinction Rebellion Bristol (XR Bristol), the ‘Stop The Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide! Campaign (SMWeCGEC) and the Bristol based Afrikan ConneXions Consortium (ACC).

The theme of the meeting was ‘Legacies of Enslavement and Resistance For Rebellion Today‘. It was co-chaired by Robin Boardman from XR Bristol and Jendayi Serwah, Co-Vice Chair, SMWeCGEC who introduced the meeting and the interconnections between XR Bristol, SMWeCGEC and ACC. Kofi Mawuli Klu, a Pan-Afrikanist political activist and SMWeCGEC Co-Vice Chair spoke on ‘Lessons from Abolitionist Resistance for Stopping the Maangamizi Today By the Necessary Reparatory Justice Means of Extinction Rebellion’.

In his message, Kofi explored the legacies of the history of Afrikan & Abolitionist resistance to the Maangamizi (Afrikan Hellacaust) which can be drawn on in building solidarities with the Extinction Rebellion Movement today in tackling common goals of stopping ecocide, genocide and repairing the World.

There were participatory workshop discussions which followed the presentation.

The following was a video taken by Extinction Rebellion Bristol of the introductory messages from Robin, Jendayi as well as Kofi’s speech.

Pictures from the event, courtesy of Extinction Rebellion Bristol & Afrikan Connexions Consortium

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PARCOE POSITION STATEMENT ON UNIVERSITIES & REPARATIVE JUSTICE PROGRAMMES

Posted on December 2, 2018 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

WHY I AS A REPARATIONS ACTIVIST PARTICIPATED REBELLION DAY ON 17/11/18

Posted on November 23, 2018 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

I spoke as an activist in the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations, in general and a representative of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign (SMWeCGEC) which takes a special interest in the connections between the Maangamizi (the Afrikan Hellacaust), the global Afrikan reparations claim arising from it, and a host of contemporary injustices that not only we as Afrikans, but also the rest of humanity faces and which endanger our very existence. That is the possibility of human and other species extinction.

Extinction is an expression of structural violence against Indigenous peoples and their relations, and colonial violence in particular; involving systemic forms of harm, exclusion and discrimination, each of which is ecologically devastating. So how does extinction apply to us as Afrikan Heritage Communities?; well, for over 500 years, the entre Maangamizi, in all its phases, rooted in the Transatlantic Traffic in Enslaved Afrikans (TTEA), enslavement and colonialism, has been and still is geared towards the extinction of Afrikan people. These forms of colonial and structural violence not only involved mass killing, but also the invasion, occupation, settlement and despoliation of our Motherland, Afrika; uprooting and disordering Afrikan communities, trafficking millions of Afrikans into Abya Yala (the so-called Americas) which had genocidal and ecocidal outcomes; destroyed millions of lives over generations and changed the socio-economic fabric of existing societies in Afrika, Abya Yala and the Caribbean. For those that remained, this led to enduring injustice with intergenerational and epigenetic effects. For instance, undermining our own Afrikan modes of governance and kinship systems and in the process systematically destroying relationships between life forms in addition to epistemicide/s or the erasure of knowledges. Such forms of violence weakened the co-constitutive relationships between Afrikan Heritage communities, other life forms and ecosystems that have enabled our collective survival in harmony with nature for millennia.

An aspect of genocide is “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” Various aspects of these harms are epitomised in the twelve manifestations of ecocide and genocide highlighted in the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Petition, a grassroots tool of the SMWeCGEC, working towards genocide and ecocide prevention by mobilising people as part of the People’s Reparations International Movement (PRIM) and the ISMAR to stop various manifestations of the Maangamizi. The third manifestation of the Maangamizi contained in the petition is: denial of Black and Afrikan ‘Mother Earth’ (Nana Asase Yaa), human and peoples’ rights to national self-determination as an oppressed People. In the petition, various other ‘power disparities’ and inhumane public policies and practices are identified which have genocidal outcomes and continue to cause devastation to Afrikan Heritage Communities within and beyond the UK. Such policies and practices have resulted in the decimation of generation after generation of people of Afrikan heritage due to ecocidally induced physical and cultural genocide, the destruction of ecological and social life-systems as well as natural flora and fauna. Not to mention the perpetration of a myriad of other environmental crimes such as wildlife crimes, illegal logging, illegal fishing, illegal waste disposal and pollution, illegal traffic of ozone-depleting substances and illegal mining.

Some of the genocidal outcomes for Afrikan Heritage Communities include:

• Physical, biological, economic, cultural genocide
• Social and civil death of Afrikan People.
• Ecocide of our environment.

However, the life-destroying pollution of our planet, anti-Black racism, its specific form of Afriphobia and the impoverishment of whom Frantz Fanon referred to as the ‘Wretched of the Earth’, all arguably have their causes in the current unjust world system. Many scholar-activists have helped us to understand that the current world system is rooted in and has been established through the Transatlantic enslavement of Afrikans. We as an Afrikan-led Reparatory Justice campaign are therefore working as an affinity group and campaign which is building solidarities with the Extinction Rebellion Movement on the basis of the commonality of interest we share in rebelling against ecocide and ensuring accountability for environmental crimes. In addition to the fact that our campaign itself is a form of ‘rebellion against extinction.’ – In that it is safeguarding Afrikan people’s role as custodians of humanity’s futures; which focuses on the racialised and other intersectional destruction/s of genocide and ecocide as deliberately inflicted forms of colonial, imperialist violence against Afrikans, indigenous peoples and Mother Earth, in furtherance of advancing holistic reparatory justice. This is something which PARCOE, the reparations coalition I am part, of refers to as Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice. In this regard, the SMWeCGEC has been heavily influenced by PARCOE’s approach or (‘overstanding’) of the problem of climate change from a Pan-Afrikan internationalist perspective; therefore seeing the climate emergency as the result of the criminal imposition – by the ruling classes of Europe – of a rapacious system expropriating the resources of the globe, not only at the expense of the majority of Humanity, but also to the detriment of our Mother Earth.

Our strapline in the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Campaign is ‘stopping the harm – the first step to repairing the damage’. By repairing the damage we are referring to reparations or as we prefer to say, Reparatory Justice. We see this as the beginning of the solution to reversing centuries of super-exploitation and extractivism and ending the ‘climate emergency’ and its corollary ‘human and peoples rights emergency’. Enforced access to much of the world’s natural capital – oil, gas, timber, minerals which lies on or beneath lands occupied by Afrikan, indigenous and Aboriginal peoples often entails land evictions, displacements, forced relocations, arrests, abuses and killings and other violations. For us as people of Afrikan heritage, reparations cannot simply be limited to financial compensation alone due to the nature of the damage and existential threat that we are facing. Comprehensive and adequate reparations require the removal of structures built on centuries of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and crimes of aggression, in the forms of enslavement, colonialism and neo-colonialism or what we refer to as the Maangamizi.

Reparations must entail the cessation of current violations, such as environmental crimes in particular, and guarantees of non-repetition including true decolonisation and the restitution of sovereignty for Afrikan, Aboriginal and other indigenous peoples globally. For sovereignty, as conceptualised by Afrikan and indigenous peoples, is indispensable to halting the destruction of Nana Asase Yaa (Mother Earth) as our home; which has been caused by the structurally violent European initiated cultural, political, socio-economic system known as capitalism that is rooted in the genocide of indigenous and Afrikan peoples, chattel enslavement and the dispossession of ancestral lands, territories and natural resources.

Afrikans, Aboriginal and indigenous peoples have always known that the processes of genocide and ecocide are inseparable, for what has happened to our people and the lands on which we live are interconnected. In the Pan-Afrikan perspective of the ‘Stop the Maangamizi!’ Campaign this warrants an ‘overstanding’ that in stopping the harms of ecocide and genocide, we not only have to emancipate and save ourselves, but this process of stopping the harm and repairing the damage must also result in the repair of humanity and the cosmos. Since we as Afrikan people, who in the words of Audre Lorde, “were never meant to survive,” see that we have unique insights into what it means to be in stewardship of this World, Planet and Cosmos.

Accordingly, one of the seven goals of Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice is to “Enforce environmental elements of global justice full respect for Mother Earth/ Nana Asase Yaa rights.” However, we know that we cannot accomplish even our own self-determined goals for Reparatory Justice fully without working with others who are seeking to achieve similar goals of revolutionary social change and transformation. As the Afrikan freedom fighter Samora Machel said: “International solidarity is not an act of charity: it is an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the same objectives. The foremost of these objectives is to assist in the development of humanity to the highest level possible.”

Samora Machel

But how do we repair the loss of a future?

We have to destroy the peace of those who are too comfortable to change in order to rebuild!

By all means, we must escalate the rebellion by building alternative futures.

I close with some words of wisdom from the Calypsonian Baron’s ‘Mother Earth is Dying’.

Today the things we nurture could determine the future
And pray what would the picture be
See grandson and granddaughter fighting, chaos and disaster
As Mother Earth protest violently
Wake up, wake up people and be part of the struggle!
The planet earth in serious trouble
We got to end this melancholy refrain
We cannot afford to lose Paradise again
That’s why I’m pleading.

Mother Earth is crying, she say to stop the polluting…
Mother Earth is Dying, we got to stop the polluting…
Whole attitude got to change, and priorities rearrange
We got to become more competent
The way we protect the environment
And fight, fight for all that it’s worth
Fight to save Mother Earth…
Mother Earth crying…
In case you don’t know, the planet Earth dying slow
What a sad way to go.

Thank you!

Esther Stanford-Xosei, Coordinator-General, ‘Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide!’ Campaign (SMWeCGEC)

BENIN INOSAAR COLLOQUIUM PRESENTATION GBETOWO IN ‘ABLODENUDZRADONATOTRO

Posted on October 22, 2018 by STOP THE MAANGAMIZI

GBETOWO IN ‘ABLODENUDZRADONATOTRO’:

TOWARD THE PAN-AFRIKAN REPARATIONS FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE VICTORY OF MAATUBUNTUMAN

By Mawuse Yao Agorkor of the
ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO Global Ewe Community of Practice for Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice (ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO-GECOPPARJ)
and the VAZOBA Afrika and Friends Networking Open Forum.

https://www.facebook.com/415256132147081/photos/a.555388351467191/727473107592047/?type=3

ABSTRACT

This is a presentation giving a basic outline explanation of the ‘Pempamsie’ planning of, and the groundwork being done to effect, people’s self-empowering Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice within the Ewe-Fon-Adza kindred communities of the Gbetowo nationality in West Afrika as their own self-determining contributions towards the victorious building of the MAATUBUNTUMAN Pan-Afrikan Union of Communities. There is well emphasized the crucial importance of Cognitive Justice to understanding what Reparations mean as ‘Nudzradonatotro’ to the Gbetowo. Proceeding from this ‘Nudzradonatotro’ conceptualization, the presentation highlights its cardinal exposition of the view that Reparatory Justice will be utterly meaningless to partitioned indigenous Afrikan communities like the kindred Ewe-Fon-Adza communities in present-day Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria, unless the Maangamizi criminality of the European imperialist neocolonially imposed borders of Coloniality, that are a huge part of the still persisting legacies of the infamous 1884-1885 Berlin Conference, are completely dismantled in the total national and social liberation course of effecting true Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice. Hence the great attention given to explaining the contributions being made by the ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO-GECOPPARJ, under the auspices of its parent formation, the ABLODEDUNOVISIHA Gbetowo Global Union for Pan-Afrikan Community Regeneration (ABLODEDUNOVISIHA-GGUPACOR) to the remarkable works of the Stop the Maangamizi: We Charge Genocide/Ecocide Campaign (SMWeCGEC), and the Global Afrikan People’s Parliament (GAPP); that is, Gbetowo contributions to putting a full stop to the Afrikan ‘Hellacaust’; in order to achieve the definitive victorious building of MAATUBUNTUMAN, out of the unification of ‘Sankofahomes’ throughout the continent, together with ‘Maatubuntujamaas’ all over the World, wherever is thriving the diaspora of Afrika.

Introduction

Honourable Chairperson, Distinguished Guests and Fellow Participants;

With great pride I bear, in the Afrikan Personality dignity required by such a humbling big responsibility, the immense honour of representing not only my own primary organization, the ABLODEDUNOVISIHA Gbetowo Global Union for Pan-Afrikan Community Regeneration (ABLODEDUNOVISIHA-GGUPACOR); but also, and indeed, to be more precise, mine is the honour of representing our ABLODEDUNOVISIHA through one of its Grassroots Academia branches, the ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO Global Ewe Community of Practice for Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice (ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO-GECOPPARJ), which is most relevant to this 19th-21st September 2018 Colloquium of the International Network of Scholars and Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR). It is noteworthy to register the fact that, among others, I do also represent here the VAZOBA Afrika and Friends Networking Open Forum; as well as the West Afrikan Grassroots Preparatory Action Coordinating Committee of the International Network of Scholars and Activists for Afrikan Reparations (WAGPACC-INOSAAR). When we started being drawn as early as in October 2016, by the Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition in Europe (PARCOE), based in London, United Kingdom, into discussions and preparatory work for the building of INOSAAR, we on the ground in West Afrika gave careful thought to a considerable number of bittersweet lessons from our own chequered previous as well as still ongoing current experiences.

WAGPACC-INOSAAR: Our Rationale

We of ABLODEDUNOVISIHA and VAZOBA are among those who proudly regard ourselves as the Scholar-Activists of the Grassroots Academia of our Communities of Resistance for Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice throughout the continent and diaspora of Afrika! We take immense pride in the Decolonizational furtherance of Cognitive Justice by doing our Scholar-Activist work mainly in our own indigenous Afrikan languages, utilizing creatively our own indigenous Afrikan knowledges, including spirituality, capacities, skills, cultural processes, tools and various other instruments, infrastructures and mechanisms to carry out appropriate mass conscientizational work by way of Popular Education, giving priority to Action Learning and similar mural and extra-mural endeavours of Lifelong Learning, among the ordinary masses of our Afrikan people at home and abroad. We unapologetically storm into this September 2018 colloquium space of INOSAAR, in the Republic of Benin, as non-state acting grassroots subaltern Scholar-Activists, coming from mainly the so-called hard to reach nooks and crevices of our Afrikan Communities of the Wretched of the Earth, from our own Lifelong Learning spaces of the Poorest of our poor Afrikan Communities of Resistance. For, it is the Reparatory Justice interests of such impoverished Afrikan Communities of Resistance that many in the ivory tower citadels of the Establishment Academia ignore, with some even contemptuously denying the very existence of ourselves and the distinctive interests of Intersectionality we independently represent both on the continent and in the diaspora of Afrika today! So we are coming from having had, since 2016, to do very serious thinking for ourselves about how best to make the INOSAAR endeavor worthwhile to ourselves and, most importantly, fruitfully beneficial to the ordinary masses of Afrikan people in and beyond our own communities all over the World. It is such thinking that has gone into creating the WAGPACC-INOSAAR as our own autonomous space for grassroots thinking and action by non-state actors promoting, from the ground upwards, not topdown but rather from “the bottomless pit”, in our own community interests, what we regard as authentic Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice in West Afrika.

The WAGPACC-INOSAAR is an autonomous networking Bloc of grassroots formations that are prioritizing the agency of the ordinary masses of Afrikan people by promoting, advocating and safeguarding respect for their own self-determined vital best interests, views and contributions in the groundup participatory democratic building of INOSAAR. This is being done so as to ensure things are scrupulously carried out in ethical accord with the fundamental principles of the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR), so as to enhance its advancement, in organic link with the Peoples’ Reparations International Movement (PRIM), towards the Rendezvous of Victory of holistic Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice. This is necessary to ensure the vigilant defence within and beyond INOSAAR of the inalienable right of the grassroots of our deprived Communities of Reparations Interest (CORIs) in West Afrika to independently project, articulate and effect their own perspectives and endeavours of Afrikan Reparatory Justice by their own sovereign People’s Power; and to assert the real weighty massive strength of their Civil Society collective intellect and might, against overt and covert attempts to impose the topdown elitist diktat of governments and other state actors upon them to the detriment of their own best interests and also against the principles and ethical norms of the ISMAR and the PRIM. We are seeking to reinforce and consolidate the autonomy of the WAGPACC-INOSAAR and review our own work programme during and in the aftermath of this September 2018 INOSAAR Conference in Benin.

Akpe!

With this very necessary clarification, may we go on to express our profound gratitude to Dr. Nicola Frith, Professor Joyce Hope Scott, Kofi Mawuli Klu, Esther Stanford-Xosei and, of course, also to the energetically dynamic Zeguen Moussa Toure, one of the co-founders and now a Co-Vice-Chairpersons of the WAGPACC-INOSAAR, currently based in Cotonou here in the Republic of Benin, where as a political refugee he is in exile from his country of birth, Cote d’Ivoire; our immeasurable “Akpega” to all such outstanding persons who have kept our hopes in INOSAAR alive and displayed exemplary leadership, together with all others we are unable to mention individually, in bringing us to this impressive event; yes, to this event of what, to us, ought to be a historical landmark celebration of Afrikan Rootsgrounding enstoolment of the special collective chieftaincy of INOSAAR as a potentially formidable iron-component of the Academic Column of both the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR) as well as of its interconnected Peoples’ Reparations International Movement (PRIM).

We are in Xogbonu/Hogbonu/Aja Ile!

Being an Ewe Scholar-Activist Advocate for our Gbetowo indigenous community rights, may I seize this opportunity also to highlight one more very important thing in this introduction to my presentation. It is vital for me to do so as my sacred Scholar-Activist duty of great importance to our ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO, which is a Reparations-focused Lifelong Learning and Action Research agency operating under the auspices of the broader ABLODEDUNOVISIHA Gbetowo Global Union for Pan-Afrikan Community Regeneration (ABLODEDUNOVISIHA-GGUPACOR). With long pent-up emotions of ABLODEDUKO Afrikan Personality pride, I too embrace the “Woezor” in this Xogbonu (or Hogbonu, also known as Aja Ile) city of so-called Porto Novo in the Republic of Benin; yes, to be true to the principles of Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice, let me uphold one of the Decolonizational Best Practice norms of our ABLODEDUNOVISIHA and VAZOBA by choosing to call this Afrikan place, not by the misnomer of so-called “Porto Novo” which marks it out as one of the most appalling crime scenes of the Maangamizi, that is by its still European imperialist-imposed obnoxious name of Coloniality, but rather by its own indigenous Afrikan original names of Xogbonu, or Hogbonu or Aja Ile, which better dignify it in what ought to be its truly majestic Afrikan sovereignty! Though not surprising that “Porto Novo” is still being officially misused for this place in this supposedly independent modern country of Benin, it is still shocking that little is being made of the fact that it is one of the European imperialist colonially carved out nation-state crime scenes of the Maangamizi which is prolonging the ‘Hellacaust’ criminality of Genocide and Ecocide in its continuing partition and division of our closely related familial Ewe-Fon-Adja kindred communities of the Gbetowo in West Afrika that are also to be found in Togo, Ghana and Nigeria!

To Kalelaklefiaga Agadza and Kalelaklenyonufiaga Hangbe: Our glorifying Salutations!

Without diminishing our boiling Gbetowo Black Rage concerning this continuing Maangamizi criminality, it is to an extent soothingly heart-warming to us that some of us are for the very first time setting our feet upon this holy soil that is part of the sacred homeland of our Gbetowo; a most wonderful homeland to which we proudly trace the glorious footsteps of our revered ancestral Heroes and Sheroes such the legendary Pan-Afrikan Abolitionist giants Kalelaklefiaga Agadza Audati Trudo and Gbetolaklenyonufiaga Na Hangbe of magnificent Dahome!

We do not have enough opportunity right now to properly tackle the lots of nonsensical Afriphobic racist mudslinging seeking to belittle the towering gallant role of Kalelaklefiaga Agadza Audati Trudo not only in our Gbetowo but also Afrikan and World History. Despite indisputable eye-witness testimonies of even critical-minded European travelers, like the British Royal Navy surgeon John Atkins and the British trader Bulfinch Lambe, who both had experienced contemporary life in those times in Dahome, and arguments brilliantly advanced by renowned historians of the illustrious stature of the likes of I.A. Akinjogbin and Basil Davidson, there are those who still keep spinning highly questionable concoctions from the figment of their own prejudiced imaginations in order to speculatively attempt to tarnish the image of Kalelaklefiaga Agadza Trudo. Even though he was hailed as such by Anti-Slavery campaigners in Britain and elsewhere, the image of Kalelaklefiaga Agadza as a self-motivated indigenous Afrikan Abolitionist Freedomfighting Chief appeared to be too damaging to the White Supremacy racist narrative to be allowed to stand without even deceitful vilification. So the Big Lies mudslinging continues against the glaring evidence to the contrary!

The Question of Afrikan Complicity

This is most noteworthy in relation to some of the points being made in this INOSAAR Colloquium here about Afrikan complicity in the Maangamizi, in connection particularly with its phase of Chattel Enslavement. Those con-tricksters who come on get-rich-quick capitalist fortune-hunting trips to West Afrika from the Diaspora to try various dodgy scams, with the sinister purpose of guilt-tripping us here on the continent of Afrika by spinning distorted half-truths about Afrikan complicity in the Chattel Enslavement phase of the Maangamizi, only in order to criminally extort from gullible chiefs and other ignorant traditional leaders and obscurant politicians undeserved goods and services for their own greedy individualistic and narrow cabalistic self-enrichment, ought to be resolutely challenged, mercilessly exposed and severely punished by all true Pan-Afrikan Reparationists at home and abroad! Among the weapons we must sharpen for use against such unscrupulous con-tricksters and their gangsteric cabals is comprehensive knowledge about the whole truth of the global Maangamizi Experiences of our Afrikan people at home and abroad, of all our communities throughout the continent and diaspora of Afrika.

There is a lot of one-sided accusatory finger-pointing at Afrikans born on the continent by some of those born in the diaspora about complicity in the Maangamizi crimes of Chattel Enslavement, with the often repeated chanting of “Dem sell we” and “you also owe and therefore have to pay us reparations”! This is where comes in handy literally the Afrikan Wisdom saying that when you are pointing one accusing finger at somebody else, be mindful that all the rest of your fingers on that same hand are actually pointing at your own self! So, apart from the notorious sambos and other “runaway slave-catching” goon squads even from among renegade Maroons in Jamaica and other Caribbean islands, lots of true stories abound about Afrikan Heritage individuals and their families elsewhere throughout the so-called Americas who got involved in Chattel Enslavement crimes as the so-called ‘owners’ of their fellow enslaved Afrikans in the diaspora! Writing about such “Rogues in the Gallery of Black History”, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jnr, as the Director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard University and Editor-in-Chief of “The Root”, drew upon the works of some of the most outstanding Afrikan Heritage historians, including the renowned likes of Joel A. Rogers and Carter G. Woodson, to provide convincing evidence (see the article “Did Black People Own Slaves?” by Henry Louis Gates Jnr); which are buttressed by the writings also of illustrious Jamaican historians like Richard Hart and Arnold Bertram (see the article “Jamaica’s Black And Coloured Slave Owners” by Arnold Bertram at http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/news/20170801/arnold-bertram-jamaicas-black-and-coloured-slave-owners ). As for the present-day examples of the traitorous Black-Skin-White-Masked Elite involved in Afrikan complicity in the Maangamizi crimes of our contemporary era, that is in the criminality of Neocolonialism, we must, with all intellectual honesty, engage in critical examination of the questionable track-records not only of those “Men and Women of the Hegemon” of the ilk of Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo of Ghana and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, but also of the Libyan Carnage-Wreaker Barack Hussein Obama of the USA and the Maangamizi Denier at Durban Baroness Valerie Ann Amos of the United Kingdom! Let therefore all the deceitful one-sided accusatory finger-pointing stop so that we all can rise together throughout the continent and diaspora of Afrika higher above the scams of con-tricksters in sincere promotion of genuine Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice!

These points are of crucial importance for me to emphatically make at this INOSAAR Colloquium here in Xogbonu/Hogbonu/Aja Ile, in the Republic of Benin. Nevertheless, mindful of the challenges of translation from the English into the French languages that are not our own indigenous Afrikan mother tongues, and since the time given us is grossly inadequate to do real Cognitive Justice to my topic, may I suggest a way out: that is, to advise all those who are genuinely interested in my whole contribution to ask the key organisers of this colloquium for a full written copy of my presentation. I believe Dr. Nicola Frith is the one person to contact in particular in order to obtain such a full written copy of my presentation. May I therefor proceed by selecting a number of cardinal points for highlighting. On the whole, my outline of such cardinal points are as follows.

Bringing into the Global Justice Limelight the Maangamizi Agony of the Gbetowo Nationality

Gbetowo is the collective umbrella name of the Gbe Language-speaking indigenous nationality of all people of the Ewe-Fon-Adza communities now home-based in West Afrika. Among the noteworthy historians from these communities who have been writing about their people from a wide diversity of perspectives are the likes of F. Akoli, D. Amenume, Francis Agbodeka, G.K. Nukunya, Komi C. Kudzodzi, Charles M.K. Mamattah and Kodzo Gavua. The Gbetowo are to be found mostly in the countries of Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria, divided by the artificial borders drawn rather arbitrarily, far away at the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference on the Scramble for and Partition of Afrika by the colonizing powers of Euro-Amerikkkan Imperialism. Minoritised in these imprisoning Bantustan nation-states of Neocolonialism that are part of the geopolitical prison-industrial complex of the Global Apartheid Coloniality of White Supremacy Racism, the Ewe-Fon-Adza communities of the Gbetowo nationality are extremely marginalized, severely discriminated against and brutally suppressed; they are repressed with the structural violence of Euro-Amerikkkan Imperialism which keeps on being dispensed through its African puppet quislings in the governmental organs and other structures of the state machinery in these countries of West Afrika today. Becoming more conscious and therefore increasingly rising up more militantly in defence of their human, peoples’ and Mother Earth rights as indigenous communities of Afrikan people, the Gbetowo are making their presence at home and abroad to be felt and therefore getting more visibly seen in the battles for participatory democratization that are growing in the countries of Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria respectively.

There are diverse politico-ideological and organizational tendencies within the Ewe-Fon-Adza communities at home and abroad; with most at present still merely asking for democratic reforms and improvements in their situation in the countries of Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria; while a vocal minority of others continue agitating for complete secession and some demanding various kinds of autonomy to strengthen the Gbetowo identity and national self-determination. Among all of these groupings, our ABLODEDUNOVISIHA Gbetowo Global Union for Pan-Afrikan Community Regeneration stands out for a unique position creatively advocating defence of the human, peoples’ and Mother Earth rights of the Ewe-Fon-Adza communities in unification as indigenous Afrikan people’s rights by way of championing Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice! Accordingly, ABLODEDUNOVISIHA is following its own ABLODENUDZRADONATOTRO conceptualised and designed ‘Pempamsie’ Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice Plan of Positive Action and therefore working diligently from the grassroots in promotion of the Pan-Afrikan liberatory unification of the Ewe-Fon-Adza communities into an autonomously self-determining national polity of ABLODEDUKO; an autonomous ABLODEDUKO polity that will initially remain inside and grow organically within but also transcendentally across the borders of the countries of Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria; such an ABLODEDUKO will systematically, methodically but gradually be constituted from the organic naturing of ‘Sankofahomes’ from within the Ewe-Fon-Adza Communities of Reparatory Justice Interest (CORJIs); gradually integrating with ‘Maatubuntujamaas’ as Afrikan Heritage Communities for National Self-Determination (Maatubuntujamaa-AHCNSDs) in the diaspora of Afrika, such ‘Sankofahomes’ of the Ewe-Fon-Adza Communities of Reparatory Justice Interest on the continent will become the Gbetowo ABLODEDUKO component building blocks of the future MAATUBUNTUMAN Pan-Afrikan Union of Communities!

‘

ABLODENUDZRADONATOTRO’ as the Gbetowo’s own Cognitive Justice conceptualization and projection of Pan-Afrikan Reparations from their own Nunyansa indigenous knowledge perspective.

Every community’s own understanding of Reparations through its own indigenous knowledge perspectives and the self-determining strategy and tactics shaped accordingly is itself a Cognitive Justice prerequisite to its own definitive achievement of its appropriate holistic Reparatory Justice. This is exactly what our Gbetowo vibrantly display through our own Nunyansa indigenous knowledge conceptualization of Reparations as our own ‘ABLODENUDZRADONATOTRO’ self-determining Community Repairs for Rootsgrounding Change. The scholar N.K. Dzobo emphasizes the great importance the Ewe devote not to the mere acquisition of simply Knowledge as “Nunya”, but more to its Gbetowo own creative advancement through their own practical Lifelong Learning Experiences into the Wisdom of “Nyansa”; hence the concept of “Nunyansa”! We must all be mindful of the fact that Reparations would be incomplete if we failed to grasp the necessity for advancing knowledge in the praxis of unifying theory and practice into Wisdom and take into account the radical Changemaking for the better aspect of such advancement to effect true civilizational Progression. So therefore we must repair with a crystal-clear view to visionary radical Changemaking for the betterment of our whole communities. That is why we enthusiastically embrace the holistic definition and comprehensive exposition of Black self-empowering Reparations for our Afrikan people and all Black Humanity that was brilliantly advanced by Professor Chinweizu at the 27th to 29th April 1993 First Pan-Afrikan Conference on Reparations for African Enslavement, Colonization and Neocolonization held in Abuja, Nigeria.

As ABLODEDUNOVISIHA, we are progressing from the Ewe-Fon-Adza Nunyansa conceptualization and programmatic ‘Pempamsie’ design of true Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice as ABLODENUDZRADONATOTRO. We are making such advancement by becoming increasingly highly conscious, in the light of what Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah argued in his “Consciencism”, of the fact that such progression of ours must have as its foundation the ultimate maximum concentration of our own Afrikan people’s indigenous knowledge power in order to best formulate the collective intellectual basis for the creativity of our Gbetowo’s own unique contributions to the successful building of the MAATUBUNTUMAN Pan-Afrikan Union of Communities. That is why we are doing so with our characteristic Gbetowo Reparatory Justice grand vision of ABLODENUDZRADONATOTRO, arising from the Nunyansa fertility creativity of our Ewe-Fon-Adza community radical imaginations; so much so that we are glocally thinking and acting with a clear Wakanda-style futuristic view; that is, the view to taking all Humanity along our adventurous flight upon the Sankofa wings of MAATUBUNTUMAN building, to courageously soar, with the greatest possible pyramid-building audacity learnt from our revered Ancestors, well beyond current horizons upwards to the loftiest glorious heights of our definitive Pan-Afrikan Internationalist Rendezvous of Global Justice Victory.

The Ewe-Fon-Adza Community indigenous Empowerment Mechanisms

Our Ewe-Fon-Adza communities intergenerationally inherit inalienable traditional core value systems of knowledge, culture and spirituality, a wholesome World outlook and ways of life and wellbeing that give us a uniquely distinctive Gbetowo community spiritedness, identity and ethos in contribution to what Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah called the Afrikan Personality. The aforementioned systems contribute immensely, by the Nunyansa ways and means of Sankofa progression, to create, regenerate and advance various indigenous community empowerment mechanisms. Long before the disastrous colonial imposition of the Maangamizi criminality of Eurocentric Miseducation, there has been far more Cognitive Justice appropriate, meaningful and fruitful Education, training and capacity building in various aspects of Community Regeneration, Participatory Democratic Citizenship and Sustainable Development through the enforcement of the cultural values, principles and best Nunyansa practices of indigenous Gbetowo civilizational self-progression. This at large had tremendously improved and at best transformed the political and socio-economic lives of the Gbetowo nationality in the past.

Professor Ansa K. Asamoa is among those outstanding Ewe Scholar-Activists who have given quite interesting radical descriptions and exposition to the political and socio-economic historical journey of the Ewe-Fon-Adza communities of our Gbetowo nationality. Other noteworthy interesting expositions on our Gbetowo cultural practices have been made by the likes of F.K. Fiawoo, S. Mote, G. Nukunya, Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor, N.K. Dzobo, A.K.P. Kludze, E.Y. Egblewogbe, J.G. Kodzo-Vordoagu, Kafui Aku Ofori, Kofi Agawu and Godwin Agbeli. The proper continuity of such works necessitates, as our ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO Scholar-Activists are arguing, with the unanimous support of the entire ABLODEDUNOVISIHA, the systematic innovative development of complexes of mural and extra-mural education, seeking to harmonise the wide diversity of the endeavours of those operating in relevant spaces of the Establishment Academia as well as of the Grassroots Academia; so as to strive better for the glocal unification of all the Cognitive Justice endeavours of the Gbetowo and other Afrikan communities throughout the continent and diaspora of Afrika into a global Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice whole of Maangamizi resistant Educational Repairs! This is what shall contribute to advancing the efforts we are glocally making in exercising our own agency of popular democratic educational creativity, with modest but groundbreaking cutting-edge initiatives like the Grassroots InterLinks for Global Citizenship Action Learning (GILOGCAL); in order to galvanize similar Global Academy Commons building efforts of formations like the Afrikan Reparations Transnational Community of Practice (ARTCoP), through its work on developing the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations Academy (ISMARA), in collaboration with the Global Justice Institute of the Global Justice Forum (GJI-GJF), the CAFA Archival Resources Action Team (CARAT), the May Day Rooms (MDR), the Peoples’ Internationalist Fora for Inter-Community Lifelong Learning (PIFICOLL), the Peoples’ Academy of Action Learning (PAAL) and the Global Citizenship Educational Campaign for Curricula of Pluriversality (GCECCOP). We would like to see the INOSAAR as a whole playing a catalyzing role in support of these endeavours by more vigorously promoting and utilizing its remarkable Principles of Participation to harmoniously draw various progressive forces from both the Establishment Academia and the Grassroots Academia all over the World into even critical but yet constructive engagement with such endeavours of ours.

It is through such mainly groundup endeavours that our ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO is, with the support of its mother formation, the ABLODEDUNOVISIHA, making various interesting contributions from here in West Afrika to advancing the cause of Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice. Basically much attention is being channeled towards grassroots sensitization and mobilization, as for example through open activities of mass conscientization like the annual 1st August SANKOFAAPAE Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice International Libation Ceremony that is held in Accra, Ghana, since 2016, in link with the Afrikan Emancipation Day Reparations March on the same date every year in London, United Kingdom.

Another remarkable endeavor of ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO is its contribution to building, through VAZOBA, a strong relationship with a very select grouping of Afrikan Chiefs and other uniquely distinguished traditional leaders who are organizing themselves as the Global Afrikan Family Reunion International Council (GAFRIC). Our ABLODEDUNOVISIHA as a whole is supporting the ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO and VAZOBA in assisting the GAFRIC not only to build capacity but also to advocate for total liberation of Afrikan communities at home and abroad, with a view to having our diasporan brothers and sisters keen on Rematriation/Repatriation to having better opportunities for more knowledgeably and responsibly exercising their right to our Mothercontinent of Afrika, their right of return, in order to reunite with their families at home in the proper ways and means of true Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice. In very historic statements to the 17th March 2018 INOSAAR Conference in the Birmingham City University, two outstanding paramount chiefs in Ghana who are leading co-founding members of the GAFRIC, Togbe Adza Tekpor VII, the Osie of Avatime, and Nana Kobina Nketsia V, the Omanhen of Essikado, not only hailed the emergence of INOSAAR but also outlined areas of cooperation in working conjointly in better meaningful pursuit of Reparatory Justice for Afrikans and all other peoples of our common Humanity. We of ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO, and of the entire ABLODEDUNOVISIHA as well as the VAZOBA, have the mandate to once again reiterate to this 19th to 21st September 2018 INOSAAR gathering in Xogbonu/Hogbonu/Aja Ile here in the Republic of Benin, everything written in both statements by our two GAFRIC chiefs in furtherance of Positive Action upon them. This also relates to all the other endeavours we have been discussing and promoting through INOSAAR-RepAfrika and INOSAAR as a whole.

Conclusion

Among all the voices sounding calls for Afrikan Reparations, the increasing number and diversity of which are welcome to us for enriching public discourse on this key matter decisive in resolving all other issues in our contemporary World, we of the ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO are in accord with all our colleagues of the ABLODEDUNOVISIHA, the VAZOBA and the WAGPACC-INOSAAR in prioritizing and giving our greatest attention to the subaltern voices of those Frantz Fanon called the Wretched of the Earth throughout and beyond the continent and diaspora of Afrika. We do so because of our immense faith in the ability and capacity of the masses of our Afrikan people outside the corridors of currently existing machinery of state, yes, the ability of the most impoverished of the masses of our Afrikan people, like all other peoples of the World, to make History, even to do what to some may appear the impossible, as James Baldwin pointed out. We are of the strongest conviction that it is the masses of our Wretched of the Earth that shall exercise agency and play the most decisive role in taking our Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice Struggle to its definitive Rendezvous of Victory.

May we therefore conclude with an appropriately relevant axiom that Kofi Mawuli Klu and our VAZOBA colleagues of the Forum of Nkrumaist Thought and Action (FONTA) keep on reiterating to us in everything to do with all our Pan-Afrikan Reparations for Global Justice endeavours: “Do we mobilise and rely on the People in the Struggle against Imperialism in all its forms, or do we relegate the role of the masses of the People to a secondary place in this Struggle? I say that only the masses of the People can ensure Victory in our Struggle! ” From the 10th May 1965 Speech by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah at the Fourth Afro-Asian Solidarity Conference in Winneba, Ghana.

Akpega na mi kata!!!

MAWUSE YAO AGORKOR
Email: Mawuse.yao@gmail.com and Vazoba.afnof@gmail.com

Mawuse Yao Agorkor is a Social Justice Financial Management Practitioner and Pan-Afrikan Lifelong Learning for Global Citizenship Educationist based in Accra, Ghana, in West Afrika. His rich expertise is being glocally channeled into vibrant Scholar-Activist involvement in and engagement with various organisations, networks and campaigns in and beyond Afrika. Being a vigorous defender of human, peoples’ and Mother Earth rights, and therefore an energetic Eco-Justice promoter of Agriquacultural Lifestyles social enterprising, Mawuse’s main business occupation is working as the Chief Executive Officer of the NUNYANSABOME Pan-Afrikan Green Revolutionary Organic Permacultural Eco-Gardens (NUNYANSABOME-PAGROPEG). Considerable time of his is also devoted to serving as the General Secretary of the VAZOBA Afrika and Friends Networking Open Forum (VAZOBA-AFNOF); as well as the Principal Organising Secretary of the ABLODEDUNOVISIHA Gbetowo Global Union for Pan-Afrikan Community Regeneration(ABLODEDUNOVISIHA-GGUPACOR), under the auspices of which he plays a leading role in coordinating the ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO Global Ewe Community of Practice for Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice (ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO-GECOPPARJ). It is from these positions that he contributed to co-founding not only the SANKOFAAPAE Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice International Libation Ceremony in Accra, Ghana, but also the West Afrikan Grassroots Preparatory Action Coordinating Committee of the International Network of Scholars and Activists for Afrikan Reparations (WAGPACC-INOSAAR). He assists in glocally facilitating activities of the NKRUMAHDANFO Friends of Kwame Nkrumah International (NKRUMAHDANFO-FOKNI), the Pan-Afrikan Forum of Ghana (PAFOG), the Global Afrikan Family Reunion International Council (GAFRIC), the Global Afrikan People’s Parliament (GAPP), the Peoples’ Internationalist Fora for Inter-Community Lifelong Learning (PIFICOLL) and the Grassroots South-North Internationalist Forum (GRASSNIF). He is currently working together with the All-Afrikan Networking Community Link for International Development (AANCLID) and the Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC) in the United Kingdom on implementing the Positive Action Programme for Pan-Afrikan Liberatory Tackling of International Debt (PAPPALTID). Among the numerous innovative endeavours of Lifelong Learning Mawuse is co-organising in collaboration with various organisations, universities and other institutions and networks of mural and extra-mural education all over Afrika and the World is the Grassroots InterLinks of Global Citizenship Action Learning (GILOGCAL).

ABRIDGED VERSION

Mawuse Yao Agorkor is a Social Justice Financial Management Practitioner and Pan-Afrikan Lifelong Learning for Global Citizenship Educationist based in Accra, Ghana. He works mainly as the Chief Executive Officer of the NUNYANSABOME Pan-Afrikan Green Revolutionary Organic Permacultural Eco-Gardens (NUNYANSABOME-PAGROPEG). Considerable time of his is also devoted to serving as the General Secretary of the VAZOBA Afrika and Friends Networking Open Forum (VAZOBA-AFNOF); as well as the Principal Organising Secretary of the ABLODEDUNOVISIHA Gbetowo Global Union for Pan-Afrikan Community Regeneration (ABLODEDUNOVISIHA-GGUPACOR), under the auspices of which he plays a leading role in coordinating the ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO Global Ewe Community of Practice for Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice (ABLODENUDZRADOSAFO-GECOPPARJ). It is from these positions that he contributed to co-founding not only the SANKOFAAPAE Pan-Afrikan Reparatory Justice International Libation Ceremony in Accra, but also the West Afrikan Grassroots Preparatory Action Coordinating Committee of the International Network of Scholars and Activists for Afrikan Reparations (WAGPACC-INOSAAR). He also plays leading roles in glocally facilitating activities of the Pan-Afrikan Forum of Ghana (PAFOG), the Global Afrikan Family Reunion International Council (GAFRIC), the Global Afrikan People’s Parliament (GAPP), the All-Afrikan Networking Community Link for International Development (AANCLID), the Peoples’ Internationalist Fora for Inter-Community Lifelong Learning (PIFICOLL), the Jubilee Debt Campaign (JDC), the Grassroots South-North Internationalist Forum (GRASSNIF) and various other formations, including the innovative Lifelong Learning creativity groundbreaking Grassroots InterLinks of Global Citizenship Action Learning (GILOGCAL).

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