2022 Annual Founder Kwanzaa Message

Annual Founder’s Kwanzaa Message
“KWANZAA, CULTURE AND THE PRACTICE OF FREEDOM:

A MESSAGE AND MODEL FOR OUR TIMES”
Los Angeles Sentinel, 12-22-22, p.C1
DR. MAULANA KARENGA
|H ERI ZA KWANZAA. HAPPY KWANZAA to famine, homelessness and suffering; continu-

African people everywhere ing conflicts and wars; massive displacement
throughout the world African com- of peoples; unjust and irrational immigration
munity. And we share these greetings also policies; and continuing environmental
with all peoples of goodwill and especially degradation through plunder, pollution and
with all the oppressed, progressive and depletion. And all these oppressive practices
struggling peoples of the world. Again, this and impositions are carried out by the rich
year we bring and send you all Kwanzaa and powerful, the obscenely armed and
greetings of celebration, solidarity and aggressive, who are irresponsibly and im-
continued struggle for a shared good in the morally unmindful and uncaring about the
world. And in the words and way of our cost and consequences they savagely impose
ancestors, we wish for you all things good, on humanity and the world and all in it,
pure and beautiful, all the good that heaven especially the most vulnerable among us.
grants, the earth produces, and the waters Indeed, we live in a world of domina-
bring forth from their depths. Hotep. Ashe. tion, deprivation and degradation of every
Heri. kind, in a word, a world plagued with the
Kwanzaa is a unique and special season persistent and pandemic pathology of unfree-
and celebration of our beautiful, sacred and dom. And thus, there is an urgent need for us
soulful selves as African people, grounded in to engage in self-conscious, righteous and
and profoundly respectful of our culture. It is relentless struggle on every level and at every
a unique and special pan-African time of site to lessen and eliminate it. Here we
remembrance, reflection, reaffirmation, and remember and reaffirm in struggle Nana Paul
recommitment to the good, the right, and the Robeson’s teaching that “the battlefront is
possible. It is a unique and special time to everywhere. There is no sheltered rear.” And
remember, raise up and honor our ancestors so, it is with Nana Haji Malcolm’s parallel
whose legacies we strive to live and build on; instruction that “wherever a Black person is,
to reflect on what it means to be African and there is a battle line.” Thus, we in the organi-
human in the most profound and meaningful zation Us say, “everywhere a battle line;
sense and ways; and to reaffirm the rightful- every day a call to struggle.” And that strug-
ness and moral imperative of our relentless gle is always a dual struggle to be ourselves
struggle to be ourselves and free ourselves and to free ourselves.
and contribute to an ever-expanding realm of I created Kwanzaa in the midst of the
freedom, justice and caring in the world. Black Freedom Movement, in the wake of the
Again, this year in this our season of assassination and martyrdom of Haji
celebration, we find humanity and the world Malcolm X and the Watts Revolt, and in the
are in severe and continuing crisis, including: supportive context of my organization, Us, a
the resurgent pandemic of Covid-19, con- vanguard organization of the Black Freedom
stantly producing deadly variants; failed and Movement and dedicated to cultural revolu-
predatory economies and expanding hunger, tion, community self-determination, and rad-
Page | 2
DR. MAULANA KARENGA
ical and revolutionary social change. Thus, selves and free ourselves, and in resistance to
the creation and values of Kwanzaa reflect European cultural hegemony and political
my philosophy, Kawaida, the concerns of my domination. It was and is a conscious and
organization Us, the Movement and those conscientious choice again to be our cultur-
times, i.e., cultural consciousness; cultural ally-grounded selves, free ourselves from all
revolution; radical and revolutionary social forms of oppression and celebrate ourselves,
change; community unity; self-definition; and thus, reaffirm our unique and equally
self-determination; economic well-being; valid and valuable African cultural way of
and self-conscious participation in the libera- being human in the world. Indeed, we did not
tion struggle. seek permission or petition for Kwanzaa to be
This year’s Kwanzaa theme self-con- recognized by the state at any level. It was a
sciously focuses on the foundational right holiday and work of love and creativity I
and practice of freedom. I speak here of free- conceived and carefully constructed out of
dom in its inclusive sense, not only freedom our own rich, ancient, ongoing, soulful and
from domination deprivation and degradation sacred history and liberating culture.
so rampant and ruinous in the world, but also
of freedom to be ourselves, to express and Kwanzaa was and is also an instrument
develop ourselves, to grow and flourish and of freedom, a means of cultivating liberated
come into the fullness of ourselves. Also, I and liberating consciousness, returning us to
pose practice as the path to freedom, empha- our history and culture, and building and
sizing its necessity and the required charac- strengthening our families and communities
teristics for it to contribute meaningfully to in culturally-grounded ways that are good
the struggle for freedom and good in the and transformative and cause us to flourish
world. As we say in Kawaida, practice and come into the fullness of ourselves as
proves and makes possible everything. African persons and peoples. Indeed, it opens
Indeed, every principle must ultimately find up horizons of sensitivities, thoughts, possi-
its meaning and value in practice. And I bilities and practices essential to reimagining
define practice, from a Kawaida perspective, and successfully struggling to bring into
as self-conscious, thoughtful and transforma- being a new history, hope and world for
tive action toward a chosen objective. African peoples and humankind as a whole.
Kwanzaa was conceived, created and And Kwanzaa is and has always been
developed, then, in the context of the organi- also a celebration of freedom, a celebration
zation Us and the Black Freedom Movement of hearts and minds free from the negative
and was understood as part and parcel of a conceptions, the catechism of impossibilities,
two-fold liberation struggle to be ourselves and forms and practices of oppression taught
and free ourselves. As part of our liberation and imposed by a racist society. And it was
struggle to be ourselves and free ourselves, and is a celebration of our freedom to see,
Kwanzaa was and remains an act of freedom, express and sing ourselves in dignity-affirm-
an act of reaffirmation and resistance, reaffir- ing, life-enhancing, world-preserving and
mation of ourselves and our right to be our- liberating ways. And Kwanzaa is a liberating
Page | 3
DR. MAULANA KARENGA
celebration of the awesome beauty and possi- ness; Kujichagulia, self-determination, over
bilities of being ourselves, of seeing our- the impositions of the majority or the mob
selves as sacred and soulful and equally wor- mentality; Ujima, collective work and
thy of every right and common good of any responsibility, over selfish individualistic
and everyone, and freely reaffirming this irresponsibility and willful negligence;
without question, apology or erasing and Ujamaa, Cooperative economics, shared
deforming ourselves for the comfort or con- work and wealth and care for the vulnerable
venience of others. over greed, disparities and deprivation of
Kwanzaa and its core principles are a others. And these essential values and ways
powerful force for good in the world. Its cen- of engaging each other and the world also
tral message and meaning urge us to think urge us to reflect on, choose and practice;
deep about our lives, our families, our com- Nia, purpose, bringing and sustaining good in
munities, and our struggles to bring and sus- the world over wasteful wandering and mind-
tain good in the world. And its values speak less meandering; Kuumba, creativity, repair-
to the best of what it means to be African and ing, renewing and remaking the world over
human in the fullest sense, and these values destructive practices against each other and
at the heart of Kwanzaa and its central mes- the environment; and Imani, faith, believing
sage and meaning are the Nguzo Saba (The in the good and our future over a paralyzing
Seven Principles), a communitarian African pessimism and fear and distrust of others
value system. These dignity-affirming, life- which problematizes and limits our relation-
enhancing and world-preserving principles ships and the open-textured promise of our
offer rightful, reciprocal and rewarding alter- future. For we and what we do are the future
native ways to relate to each other and the unfolding, and in honoring our past and im-
world in these difficult, demanding and proving our present, we must strive mightily
turbulent times. to forge our future in the most ethical,
effective and expansive ways.▲
|T HEY URGE US TO REFLECT ON, CHOOSE

and practice: Umoja, unity, over need-
less division and manipulated divisive-
Happy Kwanzaa. Heri za Kwanzaa.
DR. MAULANA KARENGA, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, California State University-
Long Beach; Executive Director, African American Cultural Center (Us); Creator of Kwanzaa;
and author of Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture and Essays on
Struggle: Position and Analysis, www.OfficialKwanzaaWebsite.org, |
www.MaulanaKarenga.org; | www.AfricanAmericanCulturalCenter-LA.org; | www.Us-
Organization.org.

2022 Annual Founder Kwanzaa Message

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2022 Annual Founder Kwanzaa Message

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Annual Founder’s Kwanzaa Message

“KWANZAA, CULTURE AND THE PRACTICE OF FREEDOM:

DR. MAULANA KARENGA

|H ERI ZA KWANZAA. HAPPY KWANZAA to famine, homelessness and suffering; continu-

|T HEY URGE US TO REFLECT ON, CHOOSE

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