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African Holocaust | African Race | The appreciation or relevance of Africaness is located in the face of a multi-racial world and the primary function of defining African identity is first and foremost an exercise in political self-interest and African agency. The power of definition must remain with the majority and today African is a term used to super-umbrella all the indigenous ethnicities of the African continent and their modern-day descendents in the Diaspora

 

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AFRICAN HOLOCAUST ARTICLES

Until lions tell their tale, the story of the hunt will always glorify the hunter

African Proverb

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will

– Frederick Douglass

The most pathetic thing is for a slave who doesn't know that he is a slave

– Malcolm X

Every man is rich in excuses to safeguard his prejudices, his instincts, and his opinions.

– Ancient Egypt

Consciousness is so much greater than just having information.Consciousness is an awareness, a dynamic ethical relationship between information, comprehension, and application.

– 'Alik Shahadah

What kind of world do we live in when the views of the oppressed are expressed at the convenience of their oppressors?

– 'Alik Shahadah

We are not Africans because we are born in Africa, we are Africans because Africa is born in us.

– Chester Higgins Jr.

Leave no brother or sister behind the enemy line of poverty.

– Harriet Tubman

If we stand tall it is because we stand on the shoulders of many ancestors.

African Proverb

If we do not stop oppression when it is a seed, it will be very hard to stop when it is a tree.

– ' Alik Shahadah

If the future doesn't come toward you, you have to go fetch it

Zulu Proverb

 

VIRTUES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Africa's Endless Quest

Alik Shahadah
'Alik Shahadah 05-2013 Notes
(Upcoming Book)

   
True teaching is not an accumulation of knowledge; it is an awaking of consciousness which goes through successive stages
 
Ancient Egypt

See Also | Art of Revolution | Pthahhotep

Conscience is the moral aspect to one's conduct together with destiny to seek truth over lies—right over wrong, fact over fiction, justice over inequity, and morality over immorality. However, there is no conscience outside of consciousness. And consciousness is so much greater than just having information. It is also an exercise in wisdom.

A $20 dollar 32 Gig flash-drive has on information-- do not think we call it conscious. Consciousness is an awareness; a dynamic relationship between information, comprehension, and application. Throwing your fist in the air and shouting "Down with the System", or having locks down to your back and Marley on a T-Shirt, Malcolm on a cap, is not consciousness if it does not travel so far to express itself in the family home. Even a record player can repeat a speech by Malcolm X.

Buy now Motherland

   
Hate is not pride— just a reaction to a world that excludes you at every level. True consciousness does more than react, it goes into the world and reconstructs African greatness in every area of people activity— especially economics,ethics and culture
 
 

So If it does not impose itself on the basic relationships critical for governing our lives and making us productive. (information without application) If it is impatient with process and respect, manners, truth and justice (when truth and justice infringe on self-interest). It is not conscious if it is not reflexive, balanced, tolerant or progressive. It is not consciousness when its only response to disagreement is vitriol and binarism. It is the patina of consciousness. It is worn in fair weather and has no hard weather characteristics in the storms of our world. It becomes a fad, a clique for isolated ideologies to gather for group therapy. There is no consciousness outside of a critical thinking. Consciousness serves to isolate and quarantine the world from callous ignorance and blinding stupidity mixed in with hubris and bigoted anti-intellectualism.

Consciousness is only content with truth, it does not sit well with myth-history, pseudo-history, open lies, poor scholarship, bad logic—regardless of who the beneficiary of error maybe. Consciousness has a permanent disagreement with error—period! It does not engage double standards, hypocrisy and self-serving one-way moral window. Conscious ask the question, am I a better human, or am I only the mirror of my oppression? Am I enlightened or just ignorance in shabby rags? Because this is all some disenfranchised people have become, oppressed and as wicked as the people who oppress them.

Consciousness compared to unconsciousness, which one would you drink if given a choice?
Unconsciousness vs. consciouness, which one would you drink if you had a choice? Most do not have a choice, so the muddy water looks clean relative to nothing.

Conscious empowerment also means giving people the tools to think critically and act morally. A simple person looks at a problem and tells you only what is within the vicinity of their immediate senses and base emotions. A person of deep consciousness reads between the lines, sees the subtext, understands deeper motives, appreciates nuance, predicts five steps ahead, and offers a sagacious assessment beyond the boundaries of their senses—this is consciousness.

All human values are rooted somewhere(Ghazali), we cannot prove "right" and "wrong" by mere logic, because all values at some stage must be anchored in some fundamental elementary truths held by a conscious community. Consciousness has structure, it has ethics attached. What that means is at the foundation of everything is a moral compass, which governs behaviors and attitudes. It does not float around, and therefore holds people to some tangible values.


   

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity

 
Martin Luther King, Jr.

During the African Holocaust, during Rwanda, Congo and Sierra Leon, Apartheid South Africa, during the Jewish Holocaust, during the Native America Holocaust people spoke many languages: some European, some African, they came in all different religions some Abrahamic but some local. Some of them may have had African names and European names, they were socialist and some were democratic, some believed in Jesus—some called God Allah. Some were white as snow, and others where jet blue. Some worshiped Rog and Okokroko, and some held charms of their ancestors. Some were rich, some were poor, some had high social ranking, and some were indentured labor. Some wore beautiful African garments; some wore European rags. But there is one thing none of those who engaged in Holocaust had and that was humanity. Despite being a motley bunch, disparate in every way comparable they all shared in the abandonment of their conscience when the traded in flesh, when the committed genocide against innocent people. It is therefore by this logic that the highest unassailable virtue of humanity is ethics.

What people are seeking for is not what is right, but what agrees with their pre-conceived belief system. So they agree with things, not based on merit, but how it makes them feel--this is not how conscious people operate. And it explains why slavery and other oppressive systems lasted so long. Because people listen to profit and discounted their humanity because what was right was uncomfortable. And we should never entertain is this romance of Good Black people vs. Bad White people. The wickedest European nation is only as wicked as their power to do wickedness—their capacity for evil. Having dark skin or being the victim of racism does not automatically imply you are rightous or moral (two different conditions: being oppressed and being conscious). It just means one's propensity for evil is limited by lack of power.

We cannot discuss Kings in Ancient Egypt, Pan-Africanism, or the importance of language, if we first do not, as a people, start with our ethical core. Who are we? Are we only our enemies in black skin, or are we the hope for a better world?


   
Not all words spoken were created equal: Some words come from a mind that has studied, from a body that has traveled a 1000 miles, from eyes that have witnessed, from a tongue that has eloquence, from a heart that has passion and from a soul that has sincerity
 
' Alik Shahadah

YOUR JOURNEY HERE


   
Two people walking different paths, with truth in their heart, can reach the same river
 
' Alik Shahadah

How did you find your path that lead you to become aware of a greater calling? Some read the Bible and got here, some heard Bob Marley's music and came into consciousness, some came from Islam and found their call and purpose among the living. Some have socialist roots. Something sparked that desire to report to the front line and carry this heavy burden of being conscious and the responsibility of that consciousness. Different paths, but what matter most above all other considerations is we are here! There is certainly no pattern of hairstyles, beliefs, fashion, that we all share. If speaking an African language, worshiping African icons, wearing a two foot high Afro, and beating a drum were the virtues of consciousness, then the front line of this struggle would be represented by those personalities—it is not!

Consciousness has empathy, it understands that not everyone thinks the same. What works for me, might not work for you. We can discuss, and disagree and appreciate the priority of that disagreement within the scope of our urgent issues. So that we do not take silly issues and turn them into big ones. It cannot be consciousness if it cannot discern between a mild headache and a malignant brain tumor, so focuses on the mild headache at the expense of the brain tumor. Fighting over non-issues when the house is ablaze. So fighting over who worships what, and what someone should worship for true victory has not helped; Hoping/praying we would have learnt this by now.

When you wake up in the morning it is very difficult to get up and out of bed and face the day, the floor is cold, your bed is warm. Waking up is like the awaking of consciousness, it is a violent birth of realization— It is like withdrawal from years of lies. It is abandoning comforts of a slave and walking upright as a free human. However, the air you breathe is yours, the thoughts in your head are yours, and your path is yours. Most never get out of the bed that has now become their casket.


   
Best among mankind is he who brings benefit to others
 
Hadith


THE NAME OF YOUR VIRTUES

There are all kinds of pretty names for ideological and religious beliefs systems, which people are willing to disagree and defend with passion. Outside of the temples of worship, political gathering houses, ideological names, and cliques, which reinforce these beliefs, the challenge is how you apply these teachings in the real world is what matters most. They have no honor or adherence to the tenants of their faith when being honorable does them a dis-service.

You can call yourself anything you want, but how do you apply honor when the situation calls for you to be honorable? How do you apply truth when you must be truthful, even against self-interest? How fair are you with justice when you are called to be just? If this is missing then what difference does it make what you call your belief system, if the teachings of that system are cast off like winter clothing in the inconvenient heat of summer?


DECAY AND CORRUPTIBILITY

Remember there is nothing on Earth that is incorruptible. Even the Great Empires of the Nile-Valley suffered from serious corruption from time to time. Rome fell because it lost its way, and this is independent of external "invaders" and forces. Mighty Ethiopia has slipped, despite not being directly colonized and despite having a very strong notion of self. And all religions, belief systems, social idealism, etc—local or global suffer from internal corruption. We must always be reflexive at all times to make sure the ideals and virtues stay their intended course and serve their intended mission.


TRUTH

Conscious people are never exhausted in pursuit of the truth. But truth is not truth without balance. All political driven people, race-centric, etc claim to be telling you "the truth." So they tell you the truth about African Americans and crime, African Americans and drugs, Africans and corruption, Africans and everything negative supported by reliable stats. Most of it is factual, but facts alone do not construct truths. The truth about the Jews, Muslims, or whoever, from the view point of their detractors is usually a collection of "facts" without balance. It is therefore rarely "truth."

The truth about the truth is that you probably will not like all of it when you hear it. Truth comes in any direction and can come from anyone. Truth is not the domain of one continent or one race, or religion. Truth is universal you can even hear in a babies whisper. We need to seek truth where ever it exist, whenever it exist, from whoever is speaking it.


STATE OF IGNORANCE


   
Truth never needed company to be true, it is lies and error that needs a crowd to cheer it on
 
' Alik Shahadah

The state of ignorance is a slave state. And ignorance comes in Black skin, White skin, in every ideology, religion, and geography—it spares no one. To truly be conscious means to be prepared to interrogate every aspect of status quo, and if it is found weak to have no nostalgia about discarding it. Consciousness has a conscious process of interrogation and it always seeks to learn more; to reveal truths and have greater clarity. It is not consciousness if erroneous ideas and sentiments are still clutched on to in light of greater truth.

People are so confident in ignorance without a pause to reflect on what they are saying, and this is made worse with the rise of social media when uninformed people now have a massive audience of equally uninformed people to encourage and bolster further decent into blissful ignorance. They are pretty sure, but their inability to interrogate their so-called truths is compounded by bad cognitive processes, poor logic, poor rules of debate. The ability to accept and exchange new ideas in a dialectic fashion is also corrupted. They form conclusions based on their lack of knowledge on the subject. But what kind of conclusion can you gather if your input is ignorance?


   
What kind of output can you make if your input is ignorance?
 
 

The illusion of consciousness or historical perspective is the where two cents of info, or insight are spread thin to give the appearance of a revolutionary idea. Anyone can drop in the words "We need greater economic development and love of self" or quote Fanon and Malcolm. Does that mean they can apply and understand it? Like some love song lyrics sung by a 4 year old girl, without any comprehension.

It is sad when you see people who are totally brainwashed, confused and disfunctional, yet think they are conscious and liberated, because they can quote what they think John Hendrick Clarke or Bobby Seale said. They think and work within the comfort of their own groups imbibing their own nonsense until it makes sense. Unfortunately they have followers. And you have to wonder what exactly is the difference between the fanatic born again Christian and the radical bigoted Black centric, or odious zenophobic nationalist? Because they seem identical in their methods and their attitudes. Both have no place in our New African future. And pity the fool caught in that mental trap.

Pan-Africanism is a centralized way of us uniting and using our conscious collective intellect to solve problems and bring out the best in each other. Pan-Africanism is not 1000 people doing their own thing randomly as fragmented people. We cannot grow if we are not prepared to listen and learn from our peers. Consciousness is an intellectual challenge peers place on each other to create excellence in each other. Today vulgar individualism blinds this exchange, where a challenge to make someone better is seen as a personal attack. But how can consciousness be attained in a vacuum where by its very nature it needs to connect to the broader community for its source of wisdom and information?

We live in the World and must resonate with that broader world. We need global progressive perspectives ventilated in a global intellectual community. Consciousness is not a race, a place, a time or a political party. It does not hide itself in the Greek world and shun the Islamic world. It does not live inside of Western Europe and shun India and Africa. It is not a concomitant of Black skin, nor is it confined to the intellectuals of the postmodernist era.


OWNING YOUR PAST

We, those living today with freedom and education, must accept full responsibility for our condition today! Those who arrived in chains before us, did not have the blessings we are faced with today; access to libraries, access to education, clean water, freedom to speak, freedom to worship, freedom to travel, freedom to determine our own path in this world.

It is lazy to sit on one's hands and curse oppression one million times. Will that acrimonious stance cause liberation to spring into action? Will it reform education just by saying the current system is Eurocentric? Because without an alternative developed through hard work then all we will have is Eurocentric education. Cursing it, without working on a solution is an unconsciousness persons path to self oppression.

It is natural to defend yourself and apologize or wash away your own blemishes with explanation on top of explanation. But that is not growth—it is certainly not consciousness. This is what White supremacy does; it could not deal with its own evil, so it made its evil justified. The consequences are the ongoing African Holocaust, genocide, perpectual warfare and strife gloablly. Same with Slavery in Africa and slavery in the Arab world.

This is why Catholics have confession. But you do not go to the priest and say "You can't believe what that Wicked person did to me." You go and say "I have made an error, please forgive me." The process of confession, independent of faith, is a process of reflexivity. And in that process you are compelled to own your past.

What happened is what happened—we should study that to understand it, so it will not happen again. But the lamb has never appealed to the consciousness of the wolf to be spared from becoming a meal. There is no volume of just cursing oppression that will elevate us as a people back to glory. That work requires owning our future by owning our past. It requires a dogged dedication to the enrichment of our lives through conscious reflection. Taking ownership is the first step in restoring humanity. The destiny of a people cannot be given back, requested in a letter, petitioned for, it must be discovered by self. We do not study the past to live in the past, but to understand how to use that repository of information to attain full liberation.


RESPONSIBLITY


   
Lies are the worst thing to use to build pride on, because all lies have to live in fear of one day being exposed.
 
' Alik Shahadah

The minute you put information into the public domain, you have a moral duty for the consequences of that information. This causes conscious people to tremble with fear every-time they speak or write, for fear of making a mistake and inspiring error.

In the traditional African setting, there is a system of becoming an authority and a socialization towards the responsibility of that position.[5] The rites of passage that give someone the right to speak on religion, to be a filmmaker, or any subject in our modern world. There are many ways to be initiated, but one's work is usually the best verification of that authority. So when you ask what Karenga knows about Maat, you have his PhD work (on that topic), you have peer review, you have a track record in creating Kwanzaa you have a track record in community. You have secondary sources confirming him. What this really means in basic terms is some kind of guarantee. He can not make a statement and disappear the next day like these YouTube 'scholars.' Sure some of them have books, but who cites them?

Today YouTube has produced an irresponsible personality that prey on people's ignorance under the banner of conscious liberation. They have the same modus operandi of dropping a few orphan facts with some specific dates, which gives the illusion of scholarship. Their consciousness is sacrificed in an attempt to get more "likes" or "hits" or "more applause." Good intentions aside, there is a price. And because they are not contained in a balance African centered society, which could in ancient times reprimand and peer review error they are solo agents saving an entire race with their own two hands. Polymaths without any respectable work on the plethora of complicated disciplines they speak of. Yes they are needed, yes they make very salient points but there is a slip in consciousness when bad methods justify good ends.


HATE IS EASY


   
The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract
 
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Hate is easy, anger is easy. This is why negative news sells so face.The call to the specatcle, the thing the evokes the strong passions disconnected from the higher consciousss is easily manipulated. Consciousness is consciouss of this, and resist the call. We must avoid extremes or you risk becoming an extreme contradiction. Those with the virtues of consciosuness are the wise, they are accountable for the consequences of their words—the neferious are not. If you throw hatred into a mindless mob they will cheer, but  if you throw love—they will also cheer. If you are someone in a position of leadership then have the profound duty, and responsibility, of guiding-- and not misguiding and exploiting, the people who trust you.

Any fool can say "F White people", but how is that going to help you right now? After that what is your plan? After cursing them all they will continue to employ you, they will continue to make cars, put stuff in space, print books ignoring you, throw you in prison, make films about you, own business that sell to you. So much so, that if they were to "F-off" you would die in one week because of how deeply interdependent the most radical hater is on the White world. "Black" hatred does not bother White people as much as you think. It is like little ants shouting at a Blue whale. Far more difficult to be constructive, and leave something tangible and good in this world. So lesser men have always found hatred easier.

Shouting At Powerful people when you have no power


   
O you who believe, be upright for God, bearers of witness with justice; and do not let the hatred of a people incite you not to act with justice. Be just; that is nearer to observance of duty
 
Qur'an

Excuses make us feel good, it makes sense to our brains, oh that is why my world is so screwed up, it is because of those monsters over there. So stay in bed longer, take a holiday from building something, and smash all the mirrors in your house that reflect your own agency and accountability.


MATURITY AND GROWTH


   
It is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it
 
Aristotle

Immature people cannot handle disagreement, even if that disagreement was over what shade of black to paint the roof. The mind lacks a way to rationalize disagreement and likewise the response is a base animal like either or reaction.

The African response to the world has been equally immature, and ignorant of reality.  A movement which grew a lot in the 60's and 70's and then collapsed over night. A struggle lacking in reflexivity, and thus it gets repetitive. It has a false set of agendas, which it goes about with very antiquated methods. It picks on minutia issues, like people's religion or hairstyle, over more salient issues like land and ownership, education and skills, neoliberal globalization and media control. It would sacrifice unity to show how 'unconscious' another person is. It is no wonder there are so many immature and inappropriate responses to these issues. Because if you pool of understanding is shallow, so too will your solutions be shallow.

If the world were just black vs. white issues, clear-cut right and wrong, one or the other, binary, it would be a whole lot easier to fix. Too often, we are met with shades of gray, a nexus of complexity, all kinds of caveats. Likewise, because of the complexity, we need sophisticated responses. And this is what consciousness instructs.


WHY NO CHANGE


   
If African consciousness only manifest in your mind but doesn’t end up in your hair, your clothes, your names, your diet, your ethics, your culture—then it has failed to work
 
' Alik Shahadah

Why would ignorance not let go in the age of information? Despite so much effort and dedicated Being conscious is not a static state; it is a state of a person constantly interrogating themselves. We all know the questionable things we do and think, and if we have a harmonizing relationship with our conscience, we can determine right from wrong. And this is the journey, but that journey is corrupted when we make our ill deeds fair seemingly because they are our own vices. Consciousness does not accept their weakness as acceptable; it seeks to purge bad traits from ones personality, our ones code of conduct. Therefore, we know what we do in our private life and we can very easily if sincere to the harmonizing spirit in the universe determine what needs to stay and what needs to go.


   
Don't waste your breath on fools, for they will despise the wisest advice
 
Proverbs 17:28

Creating a generation of intellectual passion; where our minds are engaged, and not our fist in resolving the issues of this world. Where wisdom and knowledge are the virtues that define our generation. And with this we only have our conscious in a paradoxical way to cure human nature. Consciousness means being aware, consciousness is piecemeal and not global. If consciousness had in 100 parts some may have 10/100, others may have 70/100. One may be conscious of the environment, but not of politics, of diet but not self-identity; of history but not of humanity. Someone might be conscious of a problem and complicit in it, then that is not true consciousness: All knowledge is confirmed by practice. If this message does not resonate then we might as well part company. And all ideologies need methodologies to transfer their virtues into the real lives of real people—here and now.

What have we learned from history? We saw Du Bois and Garvey waste time at each other's throats, we have witnessed US (Karenga) and Black Panther Party useless egotistical antagonisms. Use their failings so that  we can choose another path! We have seen how historically  "tribe" and religion have been used by oppression to destroy our unity. Why on Gods Earth would you go back to stirring up religion and ethnicity as an issue? Have you no sense!? Are there not enough issues tearing up our communities?


END OF DIVISIONS


   
What you and I need to do is learn to forget our differences. When we come together, we don’t come together as Baptists or Methodists. You don’t catch hell ’cause you’re a Baptist, and you don’t catch hell ’cause you’re a Methodist. You don’t catch hell ’cause you’re a Methodist or Baptist. You don’t catch hell because you’re a Democrat or a Republican. You don’t catch hell because you’re a Mason or an Elk. And you sure don’t catch hell ’cause you’re an American; ’cause if you was an American, you wouldn’t catch no hell. You catch hell ’cause you’re an [African]
 
Malcolm X

There has always been an element which has preyed on fear and ignorance of each other to create divide and rule.  So-called elements within Pan-Africanism, within religious communities have fragmented the people they claim to be uniting by teaching the doctrine of hate and intolerance. African Holocaust Society, and this generation is standing firm on this point; no more and never again will anyone, African or other be allowed to divide Africans along religious, ethnic, geographic or class lines. The antidote to this ignorance of our brothers and sisters is knowledge. Let the African Christian better understand the African Muslim, Let the African Muslim better understand The Vodon practitioner. Ignorance is poison and those that trade in it are enemies of humanity. It is time our Pan-Africanism matures to deal with diversity and use diversity for unity, or the fruit of bigorty will end up being ashes in our mouths.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.


THE POINT OF HISTORY


   
The liberation of the minds of the African people will be a tougher battle than the eradication of settler regimes
 
Patrice Lumumba

Many have been conditioned by the idea of feel good history, rather than an understanding of history that can be applied for present day problems. So what good is history if you cannot use it to understand the propaganda wars raging across the globe? What good is history when yet another assassinated leader falls victim to media lies in a hail of bullets? What good is history when after all the Holocaust we do not recognize the multiply faces of oppression when it strikes?


Alik Shahadah Quote     Alik Shahadah Quote
If Europe has lies and Africa has lies, know that European lies have the military, merchant, missionary, and especially media as ground support Alik Shahadah Quote
  Alik Shahadah Quote
Alik Shahadah Quote Alik Shahadah Quote
Holocaust Shahadah
Alik Shahadah Quote

And what good is history if people have not learned that sowing the seeds of ethnic and religious disunity only serves destruction? How do we make a better future, free from the errors of the past? By educating humanity in compassion and tolerance. Let the African Christian learn about the African Muslim, let the Muslim learn about the Serer, Let the Xhosa, learn about the Zulu, let Ethiopia make friends with Eritrea. Difference does not mean enmity. And true Pan-Africanist are humanist first, and utterly reject sowing the seeds of division and repeating the failures of the past.


OUR HUMANITY


   
Conscience is an open wound; only truth can heal it
 
Uthman Dan Fodio 

Peace Not War, Jusice with Peace Go and look at your wife/husband/children/parents watch them smile, watch them laugh, watch them enjoy life, watch them dream and hope. Would you want a bomb to come through your roof and end that? Would you like someone to come and chain, and ship them off in the night to be slaves? Can you imagine the aftermath if you had to watch that happen? Well know no one; Arab, Muslim, Christian, Atheist, Jew, Palestinian, African, White, Chinese, communist, would want to ever experience that.

If everyone in the world started to do this exercise they would never in a million years ask for war. 99% of the time there is a better way and we can exercise our greatest gifts; our large brain, ability to dialog and our ability to feel compassion. To lose the compassion, is to lose what defines us as human beings. The greatest crimes of humanity occur when our moral conscious, which informs empathy is made silent by selfish justifications. Mature modern people can engage in diversity and retain what makes them unique.


CLUB MEMBERSHIP


   
Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues
 
Proverbs 17:28

Consciousness is not a lifetime membership to some prestigious club. Some start on a conscious path, with conscious intentions. But the process and the wear and tear of the journey corrupt them. And how do they become corrupt without some signs firing off to warn them of their detour from the path? Because like all corruption, it happens on a long time line, it erodes discernment and promotes selfish justification. We surrender one and two values to attend what we believe is a bigger win for the good team. Sooner rather than later, we have lost ourselves in the web we have woven; a web of circular justifications, which lead to ego and nowhere else. Consciousness wants to know, it wants to learn it wants to grow; it will endure pain to know what is truth and what is a lie.

And when we open up concepts like consciousness, we can now better treat ourselves. Yes you are conscious, but are you conscious of the environment? Are you conscious about health? All these areas we cannot get 100% in but it is better to be balanced. And understand consciousness (awareness) and right action with that knowledge is not one subject course. We all came to consciousness from different roads. We all seek a definable liberation. but some paths produce more fruit than others. But we are still at very very different stages of growth. And it is even more complex because some people are 80% on identity, 24% on relationships, 2% on spirit. Some are 99% on business consciousness, 4% on African culture, 12% on Pan-Africanism. So there is no 100% all around conscious human being. What balanced people are aiming for is to have a holistic consciousness: Health, Business, family, faith, etc. And tie all aspects of our development together.


CONSCIOUSNESS IS NOT ONE SUBJECT

When we open up and explode concepts like consciousness, we can now better treat ourselves. Yes you are conscious, but are you conscious of the environment? Are you conscious about health? All these areas we cannot get 100% in, but it is better to be balanced than get 100% in history but fail ethics.

And understand consciousness (awareness) and right action with that knowledge is not one subject course. We all came to consciousness from different roads. We all seek a definable liberation. but some paths produce more fruit than others. But we are still at very different stages of growth. And it is even more complex because some people are 80% on identity, 24% on relationships, 2% on spirit. Some are 99% on business consciousness, 4% on African culture, 12% on Pan-Africanism. So there is no 100% all around conscious. What we must therefore be aiming for is a holistic consciousness: Health, Business, family, faith, etc. And tie all aspects of our development together. And consciousness demands that you stay conscious enough to check your conscious levels from time to time?

The pattern of change will never be uniform and no two people would process the same level of conscious experience. The uneven distribution thus makes it difficult to have bragging rights. Actually the concept of bragging about being conscious is an unconscious act, because that journey is a blessing.


OPPRESSION OR BEING OPPRESSED


   
What is our issue? Is it with the system of oppression or being oppressed by that system?
 
Tunde Jegede

People are concerned with the oppression oppressing them. Much less with the oppression, they place on others. This is human nature. Arab and Indian Muslims in the west decry the racism of the European, yet for years, they were oppressive to African Muslims, especially Muslims from non-Muslim families. Yet very little was done to vocalize and resolve this odious contradiction because it was not affecting their lives. Jews, terrible persecuted under Hitler’s regime, dehumanized, murdered, a few years later free from that physical horror created modern Israel and levied that exact same humiliation on the natives of Palestine. They did not, for convenience, remember their tour in Nazi Germany and emphasize. So concern with a zealous understanding of their own plight they could not see they had now become the thing they hated so much. African Americans marginalized and oppressed in America, depicted in every evil way in the media, oppressed at every gate. But when the rage of White supremacy targeted Arabs and Mexicans many joined in the scrap. In the UK, despite also being an immigrant group. African Caribbean’s exude hatred for the continental Africans. Forgetting they to are not only the same race, but share the same fate.

Consciousness places a challenge at the head of this trend. To ask the question not who is oppressing me, but who am I oppressing. If oppression is the problem then we should complain about oppression, not complain because we happen to be victims of oppression. The human being by nature, cannot see his or her reflection in the moral mirror, which is innately biased to only reflect in one-direction—self-interest. Consciousness challenges this by posing a challenge at the head of every situation.


DUALISM

Consciousness is like a blinding light of pure truth, it resonates at a pure harmonic frequency inside of our heart, mind and soul. It can truly be said to be of God, because it is pure. It stands outside of the limits of human design and is the potential for something greater. To look beyond our human animalism and become more human. To seek resolution in virtues of truth and justice, wisdom and integrity. Truth and true consciousness are irreducible, hard fixed, and dependent on each other, to know one, is to know the other. This false consciousness is a burden on our movement, and our human potential. Because its root is darkness—not light. And the cure is 100% in the sincerity of the soul that desires truth, and development. But you have to want to actually read, and engage in progressive debates, you have to open your mind and your soul for that transformation to come out of the unconscious slave state. And some do not understand that slavery is absence of knowledge, absence of balance, absence of humanity, comprehension, tolerance and sagacious insight. You cannot be Conscious and ignorant in the same temporal moment? How can you be "Aware" and "Asleep" in the same moment? How can you have vision and be blind in the same space? How can you not know and speak as if you know when you do not know? How can you speak truth, by using error?


Rite to Speak (Scholarship)

Today we have too many scholars and intellectuals coming out of the woodwork. They have opinions on major issues under the illusion of freedom of speech. They are an authority after having 4000 fans on Facebook or 20,000 hits on YouTube. Verified by people who know even less than they do.

Freedom of personal opinion in private spaces is one thing but when you assume a public platform and become an “authority” that is a different thing.

  • What wise man/woman are you quoting?
  • (A look of confusion covers their face). Oh, it is my own opinions.
  • Well then, who is scholar that instructed you, mentored you? They look even more confused.
  • I do not have a scholar.

Even in the Islamic tradition and the Jewish theology and Christianity there is a system of ordination. In the Vodon religion, you do not just say you are this and call an audience. In Islam there is a chain of scholars going back 1000s of years. So all statements sit on the quality of your chain of scholastic instruction. Long before you lead you must follow, you must sit with patience and be mentored. Capoeira is followed in the same manner; Djebe drumming again follows the same tradition. But when it comes to the new era of social media and its plethora of unqualified paper and dummy organizations then the ancient system becomes neglected, bypassed by false prophets and charlatan. These are the gates of quality control which stood the test of time for good reason.

In Ancient Africa, as with much of the world--like Greece, no one spoke with any authority on any subject unless they could show you a chain of greater people who trained them. This is an Ancient African tradition—especially found in the griot tradition of Mali. If you want to learn the Kora you have to start with a master, you have to learn all the traditional pieces first. Long after that, after you have been verified by the elders you can start teaching and composing. Same in Martial arts you always have a Sensei. You cannot call yourself a master without being verified by an institution, just like you cannot be a medical doctor without some accreditation.

Now the logic of this is 10000 years old. These are proven traditions the world over. They cannot be skipped. Even the concept of a PhD or education is bases on this principle of Rites of passage of your ability to be trusted with a certain level of knowledge and the rights to speak as an authority on that knowledge.


PRIDE

The very Eurocentrism many claim to be escaping has engulfed them in a wave of senseless pride. They boast about Africa from a materialistic lens. The most notable thing is pointy mounds in Egypt. But what about the human development and the realization of cooperation and harmony it took to build those pyramids—is that not an even greater monuments? Build pride on our humanity and our Truth nature, hospitality and tolerance. Let us then Boast about how kind we are to our brothers and Sisters from Zimbabwe who are crossing the border. Let us boast about how honest we are with our history, boast about how much truth we told and how tolerant we were of our neighbor who had a different faith. Take pride in how we rallied around our people when they have a crisis, or how we saved someone’s marriage by being justice and equitable. Build our pride on these things.


RHETORIC

Can you smoke it? Can you put it in a cup? Does it fix busted tires? Can you glue stuff with it? Can you use it as a refrigerant? Does it fuel cars? Then what is its use when we want to get on with the practical business of living? A problem of installing Windows 8 on a PC needs direct text, which speaks to the problem of the installation and gives clear steps to resolve the problem. Rhetoric is the language of motivation, and empty persuasion. It is usually abstract and floral in nature. There is certainly a time for rhetoric in the spiritual lives of people, but we need to be crystal clear about how and when these tools should be applied. Because when a car is broken we do not need rhetoric, we need a mechanic. The failing economy or the poor educational standards in Africa do not need “Africans must be owners of their own history” given that it is true, then the next sentence should be specific in addressing the how when and where, and usually the how much.


CONDUCT OF THE CONSCIOUS

Loose tongues two seconds into a debate all kind of vitriol and nastiness comes out their mouth. There is no prohibition, no template of conduct. Yet they claim consciousness. Like if, it was sitting on the tip of their tongue waiting for a feather to drop. Ideally, that is the case, we are only human but this is how a conscious person tries to live and when you make a mistake, you have regret. And we must have the ability to keep that evil within. Everyone has elements of jealousy but you know yourself and hence check yourself and correct yourself. If one is operating out of one's True Self, then no ugliness can escape through one's lips because the Spirit is in control, period.

Two people have a dispute what is your role? What is your role as a person of enlightenment? To exacerbate the conflict or speak truth, justice and balance to the problem. And to do so in a way that is wise and restorative? This is not how many behave; there is a tendency to seek one’s own delight in the fray and use the opportunity for self-interest. But a conscious soul could not do this, it must resolve every conflict with a higher since of having a divine role in the universe where they are accountable for every action in some higher scheme. Not only to the two in the dispute, because they might favor one over the other—but to engage honesty, wisdom, and apply justice within the limits of their ability.


FAKE CONSCIOUSNESS

Not everyone is ready, and don't let the head wrap and triple barrel African name fool you— many of them are trapped in the same fanaticism that got the born-again in a blind rant (it is all the same disease of ignorance). So Africa comes through a distorted lens to amplify a cultist persona of a depleted identity. And while nursing an inferiority complex any unfavorable truth is blasphemous and by having a violent reaction to truth defines their uppermost state of consciousness. Love of self is defined by negation, not practice not knowledge not culture not true identity, but a band of people who are bitter at what has escaped them and thus defined the crumbs of their history like savage dogs who have never been fed.

What do you call a person that speaks two truths to seduce you into taking four steps back? The worse kind of problem in your midst. There is something contradictory in a message of unity, which in its second breath tells you to hate your brother because he is different. What is the greater end gain? Unity or disunity, then that is the patina of consciousness. Those hollow souls whose external is dressed up African but on the inside there is nothing, no hospitality, no humility, no morals, no ethos, no discernment, no spirituality. They debauch the wife of their brother, they steal the wealth of their sister, they condemn the Eurocentric lies to better promote the Black lies, they are duplicitous, and they care about a “truth” only when it aligns with their politics. These are the hollow people who surface is painted black, but whose core is void of anything truly African.

A collection of sound bites, a head wrap and a bad attitude about White Supremacy are the criteria for consciousness in some circles. Saying Jah Rastafari and speaking with a Jamaican accent and cursing Babylon is another criteria in another circle. Or skipping Catholic mass, and pouring libation and mumbling some ancestors name and rolling your eyes back in your head. But it does not travel so far to express itself in the family home. It does not travel so far to impose itself on the basic relationships critical for governing our lives and making us productive. It is impatient with process and respect, manners and truth and justice when truth and justice infringe on self-interest. It is the patina of consciousness. It is worn in fair weather and has no hard weather characteristics in the storms of our world. In the challenges that afflict real people in the real world. Where is the consciousness in the betray of a love and trust, where is consciousness when a promise given, is thrown to the wind without a blink of the eye?

Avoid extremes or you risk becoming and extreme contradiction. We banded one guy how was a career bigot, day in day out some vitriol against Christianity as being anti-African. But on his Facebook page he promotes every vice that keep us in chains. He can see the flaws in Jesus, but he could not see the stink anti-Africaness in his own life. What good is it we asked him that African print you wear when you soul is cruel and vindictive and ignorant of Maat?  What good are those orphan quotes from Biko, Fanon, and Garvey in-between your bigoted message of disunity and suspicion. Where is your African Hospitality, morality, ethics, ethos, reverence, respect? Take off the shirt and burn it for these people are nothing but frauds. Consciousness is not hot rhetoric it is these silent virtues of justice, truth, collective responsibility, creativity, life that operate actively on our lives and the lives of others.


A CHOICE

Today, and for the rest of your life, you will encounter a situation and you will be faced with a choice (your choice). You will have the option to respond to the situation as an enslaved Negro, or as an empowered conscious African. It might be big — it might be small. Maybe someone needs a place to stay, or help with their new business, you might have to honor your word and lose something, or volunteer some time— who knows. Maybe you are the weak link in progress and have to admit your error and let someone else take over. It might seem small in the moment— but it adds up. You might have a choice between buying a conscious product or some fast food, getting your hair done or tucking away that cash for your child's education. You have a choice to engage in binary politics and fragment the hope of Pan-African unity for trivial gains. Remember it is a choice—Moreover it is your choice.


CONCLUSION


   

Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles;
Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.
Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it.
Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?
Expediency ask the question, is it politic?
Vanity asks the question, is it popular?
But conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right

 
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Many have no problem seeing their devotion within the walls of mosque, churches, temples, on scared ground, in rhetoric, and at shrines. But what is more critical is how those beliefs transfer into the real world and operate as ethical systems in everyday life. What we must grasp is beyond any of these labels what are your values as a human being. Because it will ultimately come down to that. A war between consciousness and unconsciousness. Outside or race, religion and politics is your word your bond? Is family sacred? Do you respect the old? Do you exercise justice? Do you speak truth to error?

What consciousness teaches us is thank God for diversity. Thank God that you can find women in Hijab, and you can also find women with bald heads, or with locks. Thank God there is Orisha, Rog, Chuckwu, Engai, Allah, Jah, Yahweh. Thank God we have deserts and forest. Chinese and Indians. Thanks God for Norway and Inuit of the Northern extremes. Polar bears and Tigers, ants and hawks. Our higher consciousness wants to preserve this gift but some are so primitive they cannot see. How lucky are we, the conscious, to be able— in our lifetime, to visit all of this wonder, to taste Indian food to see the cultural wonders, to read from the intellects of the diverse Earth? But then you have some who celebrated diversity by dropping bombs on it. Conscious humans who reflect come to these kinds of conclusions.

The Qur'an says "God does not change the condition of a people until they first change what is within" How then are we expecting to change oppression relationship with us, if we have failed to transform our relationship to oppression? Consciousness is the path out of the shadow of darkness into the light. The inner struggle (inner Jihad, Ahmadou Baba) transforms our relationship with the corrupt forces. But if we to are corrupt, then victory will always belong to the one with the strongest physical force, and that is not us.

Our journey (critical word) has many bus stops. Some stay on the bus and go the full journey. Some get of short and try to walk the rest of the way from remote locations (like black identity). The minute you take it to the real globalized world it vaporizes, it discusses a persecuted people, it does discuss a slave experience, but after that it runs out of oxygen and dies as a relevant way of any people of agency articulating their future, or their past.

So we say do not return racism with racism. Be balanced, be human, be moral, do right, and speak truth. Some make the mistake of thinking these things are said to appeal to broader humanity in the world of progressive agreement. But these statements are exclusively for our own African humanity —our own people's development. The continuation of the journey violently disrupted by Holocaust and internal corruption. But the primary focus is on a equitable restoration of the African to a place of dignity. We do not want to be noble and poor, eating grass and righteous, while everyone takes our wealth away—that is not consciousness.

No one can liberate you; liberation is exclusively done by self. The process of self-realization (consciousness) is an integral part of liberation. Therefore, without that process no person is actually free.

One day this race war will end, one way or another. But the conscious war has been raging from the Dawn of Humanity to Yawm al-Qiyāmah or Judgment day: From day-dot to day-dead.


   
God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is within
 
Qur'an, Sūrat l-raʿd




   
Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today
 
Malcolm X


   
You can not measure an African success with a European ruler
 
' Alik Shahadah

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