Written by Maleke Montshiwagae
let me start off by quoting the great Bantu Biko as follows::::::::::::
“Material want is bad enough, but coupled with spiritual poverty it kills,” Biko continues to say that ''the effect of spiritual poverty is probably the one that creates mountains of obstacles in the normal course of emancipation of the black people.” unquote..
in view of this notion by Biko whom actually advocated for the need for Black theology...
I quote again from the works of Dr George James in his marvelous work ''Stolen Legacy'' as follows::::::::::::::::::::::
''The ancient Egyptians had developed a very complex religious system, called the Mysteries, which was also the first system of salvation. As such, it regarded the human body as a prison house of the soul, which could be liberated from its bodily impediments, through the disciplines of the Arts and Sciences, and advanced from the level of a mortal to that of a God. This was the notion of the ''summum bonum'' or greatest good, to which all men must aspire, and it also became the basis of all ethical concepts''. unquote..
the one man that I sincerely recognize his contributions to Africa and who was clear in-terms of the importance of the implications of spiritual poverty reference by Steve Biko is Thabo, even though he could have done more for BLACK people given his insights and historical position of power .. in any case, my view is that Thabo was in synchronization with the connection between the arts and sciences and lack of spiritual poverty by BLACK people , either by chance or knowingly, but that is immaterial.
it is important to note that the role of education which was composed of the seven liberal arts, and the role of educating the students in ancient African centers of learning was to liberate their minds/soul from the bodily impediments in order to for them to attain true spiritual consciousness and eternal happiness. In terms of the contents of these liberal arts as captured by Dr George,
''Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic were disciplines of moral nature by means of which the irrational tendencies of a human being were purged away, and he was trained to become a living witness of the Divine Logos.
Geometry and Arithmetic were sciences of transcendental space and numeration, the comprehension of which provided the key not only to the problems of one's being; but also to those physical ones, which are so baffling today, owing to our use of the inductive methods.
Astronomy dealt with the knowledge and distribution of latent forces in man, and the destiny of individuals, laces and nations.
Music (or Harmony) meant the living practice of philosophy i.e., the adjustment of human life into harmony with God, until the personal soul became identified with God, when it would hear and participate in the music of the spheres. It was therapeutic, and was used by the Egyptian Priests in the cure of diseases.
Such was the Egyptian theory of salvation, through which the individual was trained to become godlike while on earth, and at the same time qualified for everlasting happiness. This was accomplished through the efforts of the individual, through the cultivation of the Arts and Sciences on the one hand, and a life of virtue on the other''. There was no mediator between man and his salvation, as we find in the Christian theory''.
Having mentioned Thabo's recognition and understanding of this level of importance of African education and values, it was not surprising to learn that he was heavily involved in the project to rescue the Timbuktu manuscripts in Mali from decay due to environmental effects and the fact that they have been there for many years. The Timbuktu manuscripts are one of the most important evidence of the documented African liberal arts that were used to fulfill true consciousness and allow students to experience inner vision and hence higher levels of being.
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Now, in continuing along the lines of mental liberation of BLACK people and its relationship to their political liberation ... Thabo again comes into the picture as a result of what I recall from what Andile Mgxitama said when he gave a talk at one of the gatherings organized by EFF at UCT when he said, ''the one person he could never forgive was Thabo because he [Thabo] has read the same material he has read and knew exactly what needed to be done, he also added that he could not blame Jacob Zuma as JZ didn't know what was going on'' ....
This position by Andile became clearer to me when i read a Lecture given by Thabo Mbeki at the 30th Anniversary of the death of Steve Biko in 2007....
Thabo wrote as follows, and this is important:::::::::::::::::
''It would seem to me that three particular historical circumstances were central to the formation of Steve Biko as an outstanding leader of our revolutionary struggle and an eminent representative of his generation''.
For the purpose of this writing, I selected only the second of ''the three particular historical circumstances'' as Thabo refers to them...
therefore, Thabo continues to write that:::
''The second is that as Steve Biko came into his maturity, the national liberation struggle was in full retreat, arising from the banning of the ANC and the PAC, the destruction of the organised structures of the liberation movement, and the systematic decapitation of the movement by the arrest of its leaders and activists. Relating to this, Steve Biko wrote: “Since the banning and harassment of black political parties – a dangerous vacuum has been created. The African National Congress and later the Pan-African Congress were banned in 1960…Ever since there has been no coordinated opinion emanating from the black ranks''.
A critically important part of the strategic brilliance of the intervention that Steve Biko and his comrades in the Black Consciousness Movement made to re-energize our liberation struggle was to mobilize the black oppressed around one message that would respond to these three historical circumstances. In a manner of speaking, this meant that the BCM threw one stone to kill three birds!
But what was this stone, this particular weapon of struggle? Thabo asked and in turn answers as follows and he says:::::::::::::
Steve Biko wrote: “The philosophy of Black Consciousness…expresses group pride and the determination by the blacks to rise and attain the envisaged self. At the heart of this kind of thinking is the realization by the blacks that the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. Once the latter has been so effectively manipulated and controlled by the oppressor as to make the oppressed believe that he is a liability to the white man, then there will be nothing the oppressed can do that will really scare the powerful masters. Hence thinking along lines of Black Consciousness makes the black man see himself as being entire in himself, and not as an extension of a broom or additional leverage to some machine. At the end of it all, he cannot tolerate attempts by anybody to dwarf the significance of his manhood. Once this happens, we shall know that the real man in the black person is beginning to shine through…Various black groups…are beginning to rid their minds of imprisoning notions which are the legacy of the control of their attitude by whites.”
This one stone was the militant and uncompromising offensive to defeat what Steve Biko described as “the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor, (this being) the mind of the oppressed.”
In the early days of the formation and development of capitalism in the United States of America, Africans were taken away from Africa in order to provide free labor in working the plantations to generate surplus money and also, they [Africans] themselves were treated as commodities that could be exchanged in the slave trade, thereby generating more surplus money for the white slave owners. It was out of this free labor and treatment as commodity of our ancestors that capitalism was birthed and expanded further because out of the surplus money generated from basically nothing, the Eurocentric industrial revolution and development was possible.
This is one reason why Karl Marx was quoted as saying: ''take away the African slave from America and America will be nothing''
In the process of enslaving Africans, their minds were altered in order to erase their Africanness and hence their essence. This was important to make sure that Africans would serve the anti-black capitalist agenda in whatever way even in the absence of the barrel of a gun! During the time of capitalist expansion and hence industrial revolution, new ways of manufacturing goods for example were required, therefore capital was used to build universities and centers of learning whose graduates would further advance the capitalist agenda of coming up with new and effective ways of producing more goods as the system expanded in order to make more profits. In turn, the graduates would be rewarded with money and material benefits of the earth, which essentially appeals to the mortal desires.
This whole material based expansion has determined the current capitalist modernity as we know it today, which is based on material consumption, prosperity defined along the lines of materialistic achievements etc. We see Africans today getting education in order to serve the Eurocentric industrial complex agenda, whose foundation of existence is the free labor of their own ancestors.
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Therefore, from the above we can see how central the role of a liberated mind of an African is.
Firstly, the education of an African was centralized around attainment of true consciousness and inner vision in order to liberate the mind/soul from the mortal bodily impediment and to ensure everlasting happiness.
Secondly, the political ideas based and centralized around a liberated African mind can lead to positive outcomes that favors the BLACK agenda and BLACK unity in the midst of this anti-BLACK world based on whiteness. Also, we saw that a liberated mind formed a cornerstone in the re-ignition of the black struggle in South Africa.
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Lastly, as Africans we need to interrogate the worthiness of material constructions vs the role of African centered education and how those are shaping our being as a spiritual people.
Mosia Motobatsi.... katse phoofolo ya thoteng!....
God bless....
