By Dr. Maulana Karenga
Again, this year we wish for Africans everywhere throughout the world African community, “Heri za Kwanzaa. Happy Kwanzaa.” And we bring and send greetings of celebration, solidarity and continued struggle for an inclusive and shared good in the world. Also, in the still-heldhigh tradition of our ancestors, we wish for African peoples and all the peoples of the world all the good that heaven grants, the earth produces and the waters bring forth from their depths. Hotep. Ase. Heri. Moreover, among all the goods that are granted, given and gained through ceaseless striving and righteous and relentless struggle, we wish, especially for our people and all other oppressed and struggling peoples of the world, the shared and indivisible goods of freedom, justice and peace, deservedly achieved and enjoyed and passed on to future generations. Indeed, we live in turbulent times of continuing unfreedom and oppression, the enduring evil of injustice and destructive conflicts, and unjust and genocidal war. And freedom, justice and peace in the world and for the good of the world and all in it are urgent, essential and indispensable.
Nana Haji Malcolm rightly and repeatedly taught that freedom is a natural and necessary right in the pursuit and practice of justice and equality, the rightful realization of our full humanity, and the living of a good, meaningful and ever-promising life. Our honored ancestors also taught us the life-giving, life-preserving essentiality of justice, saying in the Husia, “Doing justice is breath to the nose”. Indeed, they taught “the true balancing of the world lies in doing justice.” And they said of peace and its importance to the life and community of humankind “Exceedingly good is the presence of peace. And there is no blame in peace for those who practice it.” But always they and history teach us it must be a peace in freedom and with justice to be a good and rightful peace. Thus, we are morally called, commanded and compelled to bear witness to truth and set the scales of justice in their proper place, especially among the voiceless and devalued, the downtrodden and defenseless, the oppressed, and the different and vulnerable.
Kwanzaa was conceived and born in transformative struggles of the Black Freedom Movement. and was also shaped by that defining decade of fierce strivings and struggles for freedom, justice and associated goods waged by Africans and other peoples of color all over the world in the 1960s. Kwanzaa thus came into being, grounded itself and grew as an act of freedom, an instrument of freedom, a celebration of freedom and a practice of freedom. It was an act of self-determination and self-authorization; a means of cultivating and expanding consciousness and commitment; a righteous reveling in our recaptured sense of the sacredness, soulfulness and beauty of our Black selves; and the practice of principles that engenders and sustains liberated and liberating ways to understand and assert ourselves in the world. And at the heart of this liberated and liberating practice are the Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles developed and directed in the interest of African and human good and the well-being of the world.
Umoja (Unity) calls on us to work and struggle for principled, purposeful and practiced togetherness in freedom, justice and peace in our families, communities and the world. It stresses the ties that link us and cultivate in us sensitivity to each other, other humans and the world and all in it. Indeed, it is expressed in the teaching of Nana Dr. Anna Julia Cooper who affirmed this ancient and African value. She says, “we take our stand on the solidarity of humanity, the oneness of life and the unnaturalness and injustice of all favoritism whether of sex, race, condition or country”.
Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) reaffirms the fundamental principle and practice of the right of every people to determine their own destiny and daily lives, to live free in their own place, space and time. And it reaffirms the right to resist all forms of unfreedom, injustice and