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Animation: The Nguzo Saba - Seven Principles of Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa
yenu iwe
na heri!
[ kwahn-ZAH
YEH-noo EE-weh
nah heh-REE ]

Happy Kwanzaa!

 

 


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....... Practice the Principles of Kwanzaa, every day!

KWANZAA
Day #7: January 1
Nguzo Saba Kwanzaa Principle #7

Day of Meditation
Imani (ee-MAH-nee) 
Faith

"To believe, with all our heart, in our Creator, our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle."

The Seventh Principle is faith which is essentially a profound belief in and commitment to all that is of value to us as a family, community, people and culture. In the context of African spirituality, it begins with a belief in the Creator and in the positiveness of the creation and logically leads to a belief in the essential goodness and possibility of the human personality. For in all African spiritual traditions from Egypt on, it is taught that we are in the image of the Creator and thus capable of ultimate righteousness and creativity through self-mastery and development in the context of positive support. therefore, a faith in ourselves is key here, faith in our capacity as humans to live righteously, self-correct, support, care for and be responsible for each other and eventually create the just and good society.

Faith in ourselves is key.

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Especially must we believe in the value and validity, the righteousness and significance of our struggle for liberation and a higher level of human life. This must be tied to our belief in our capacity to assume and carry out with dignity and decisiveness the role [Frantz] Fanon and history has assigned us. And that role is to set in motion a new history of humankind and in the company of other oppressed and third World peoples pose a new paradigm of human society and human relations.

Frantz Fanon

Fanon says we can do anything as long as we don't do two basic things:

1) don't try to catch up with Europe [afterall, where is it going - swinging between spiritual and nuclear annihilation]; and

2) don't imitate them so that we become "obscene caricatures" of them.

 

We must, he says invent, innovate, reach inside ourselves and dare "set afoot a new man and woman." The world and our people are waiting for something new, more beautiful and beneficial from us than what a past of oppression has offered us. Let us not imitate or be taught by our oppressors. Let us dare struggle, free ourselves politically and culturally and raise images above the earth that reflect our capacity for human progress and greatness. This is the challenge and burden of our history which assumes and requires a solid faith.

We must, then, have faith in ourselves, in our leaders, teachers, parents and in the righteousness and victory of our struggle, faith that through hard work, long struggle and a whole lot of love and understanding, we can again step back on the stage of human history as a free, proud and productive people. It is in this context that we can surely speak our own special truth to the world an make our own unique contribution to the forward flow of human history.

Practice Imani every day!

Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga

SOURCE: "The African American Holiday of Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family Community & Culture"
by
Maulana Karenga, University of Sankore Press, Los Angeles, California, 1988, ISBN 0-943412-09-9

 | Umoja | Kujichagulia | Ujima | Ujamaa | Nia | Kuumba | Imani |

Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga

 | Siku ya Taamuli | Tamishi La Tutaonana |


   

Prema's Kwanzaa Web

Practice the Principles of Kwanzaa, every day!  

Kwanzaa yenu iwe na heri!
(kwahn-ZAH YEH-noo EE-weh nah heh-REE)
Happy Kwanzaa!
 | Kwanzaa | Nguzo Saba | Links |

.... Official Kwanzaa Website
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