OUR FOURTH OF JULY?
From:	e.
To:	trevoroche
Date:	Thu, Jul 4, 2019 7:12 am

OUR FOURTH OF JULY?

It's the Fourth of July, 2019 today. America was not given Independence. It seized it through whatever means thought necessary. It seized it through big ideas. America as a governmentally unified area of land was a human invention that seemed crazy to most people at the time. IT WAS SOMETHING NEW.

Marcus Garvey's project was a similar independence for Africa. But even as a unified American state was built on the foundation of slavery that negated the unified sense of place, a unified Africa has no practical (let alone, moral) reason to follow the American example. Large  groupings of humans like nations or civilizations require some form of energy to run apart from what nature provides through sunlight and photosynthesis. For groups larger than hunter gatherer bands, it most often required coerced human labor. Until fossil fuels were discovered. Garvey lived his entire life in the age of fossil fuels. The notion that fossil fuels could wreak environmental hazard, or become uneconomical as supplies dwindled, was not a popular notion in his time, and indeed is still somewhat foreign to most people. The fact is, however, that supplies are running short, and the effect of indiscriminately spewing fossil fuel emissions into the air has led humankind to the brink (although we aren't told this by our leaders). 

So an African independence movement must take a different turn, one somewhat more closely aligned to Rastafari than to the UNIA...or maybe some sort of synthesis of the two. Some sort of earth ethic would seem to be required. As would a philosophy of cooperation and nonviolence. Maybe a critical mass of society can veer toward monasticism, which has generally required material poverty but high spiritual and mental development. This would be a good subject to hear from others about. Then again, where is Africa? The African continent has always been viewed as its exclusive location. But being as we get to decide such things, just as the American founders got to decide similar matters for themselves, we might well have reason to see Jamaica, the nation that produced Garvey and that is over over 90% black, as the first intentional offshore African state,  And it might even be compelling to see St. Ann's Bay, Garvey's hometown, as its capital.

 as the first intential offshore African statevide up people based on race. You can't maintain a healthy place through divisive means. Our war of independence must be a war against division and inequity. It is not a war for equality, since nature doesn't function through equality. But it's a war that puts the land first, seeing that the land was not only here before people, but actually produced the people.