Ahjamu Umi's: "The Truth Challenge"
  • Home
  • Workshops
  • New Manifesto
  • Hit Me Up
  • Blog
  • Coming Events
  • Videos
  • Donations

How Revolutionaries Know when We Fall In Love

10/13/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
With all of the critical issues facing Africa, African people, and all of humanity today, some short sighted souls may wonder why this topic would warrant space.  Its precisely because of the title of this piece that its a required topic.  As a revolutionary Pan-Africanist e.g. someone who lives my life for Africa's forward progress, I had many, many reasons why I felt the "Black Panther" movie from earlier this year was poorly made.  One of the major reasons was the way that the Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) character was portrayed.  As is standard fare in capitalist popular culture, the person who supposedly represents revolutionary change, or at least the overturning of the existing social order, is always portrayed not as a person or persons steeped in humanist principles, but someone who is pursuing social change to accomplish some blood thirsty revenge and/or personal grab.  The subtle message here is that revolution is never about making life better for the masses.  Its all about exchanging one problem system for another, probably worse one.  Another misleading formula used to evaluate the legitimacy of revolutionary struggle is to view the "revolutionary" as the rugged individual man.  The action figure.  The savior.  Men like Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Huey P. Newton, or Kwame Nkrumah.  They embody the popular culture image of what and who a revolutionary is.  Of course, all of those men possessed serious contradictions as individuals and significant flaws, just like all of us.  They also each made outstanding contributions to humanity.  My intention isn't to tear down any of them as I've spent my entire life studying and attempting the emulate the good they did while trying to understand and deconstruct their shortcomings.  I can only hope people after me can consider me worthy enough to conduct the same level of scrutiny on my actions.  What I've learned is its absolutely necessary for us to eliminate the patriarchal image of the revolutionary man being someone like Killmonger, or even Malcolm and the others.  A revolutionary is and can only be someone who operates not from a position of hate, revenge, or spitefulness against anyone.  A revolutionary must be a person who embodies all of the complex components of human existence.  Especially within a backward capitalist world.  Che, Malcolm, Nkrumah, and all of them represented this dialectical approach to human life as we all should.  So, its with that perspective that we think this discussion about revolutionaries and love is a critical part of all the work we must do because revolution is nothing if it isn't the struggle for happiness for all of humanity.  And, there is no higher example of human existence than one person's love for another.  A person's love for humanity.

Since the dominant image of revolutionaries provided to the masses today is that rugged individual man, most people do not even see women and non-men when they think of revolutionaries and its certainly unlikely that people think of falling in love when they think of revolutionary organizing.  I would counter that people genuinely pursuing a revolutionary consciousness and lifestyle are capable of exhibiting some of the highest examples of what a healthy relationship can look like.  For example, our revolutionary Nkrumahist/Tureist ideology (not Marxist/Leninist, get that right) inspires us as revolutionary Pan-Africanists to embrace the most healthy expressions of our revolutionary African personality and culture.  Our humanist, collectivist, and egalitarian culture.  Therefore, if we are serious about our work, we can never be satisfied to see people as a means to an end.  Our humanism always requires us to see people as the end all by themselves.  That means as men, we cannot see our mates as simply a vessel to channel our sexual desires, etc.  We have to be striving to see our mates as our life partners.  Our soulmates.  People we can build capacity with.  People we can make solid and legitimate contributions with.  People we can enjoy life with. People we can support to reach their fullest potential.

Revolutionaries cannot be satisfied with being self centered and/or egotistical.  Revolutionaries must strive to always be selfless and humble.  I'm certainly a work in progress, but I'll place my sincerity and effort against anyone at any time.  My commitment to our humanist principles doesn't make me feel strange about expressing my ability to fall in love.  Instead, I'm proud to tell all of you all that I'm very much in love.  Head over heels in love.  But, what does that mean in 2018 in a capitalist society?  For this Nkrumahlist/Tureist it means I have a person to build a covenant with.  Someone who is worthy of me placing my trust in them.  Someone who I am going to be very careful to always cultivate that trust and honor.  Unfortunately, we live in a patriarchal, racist, and capitalist dominated world and as a man, I do not possess the ability to escape the pitfalls of that backward system.  The beauty of revolutionary love though is having a partner who can and does see that I'm always trying to battle what this backward system has forced upon me.  She isn't going to judge me by one thing, but by my body of work.  She's going to have the patience to work with me because she knows and trusts I'm going to do the work to get better.  On the flip side, I know that this patriarchal system has caused her great pain.  I'm always going to ensure I'm as sensitive to that as I can possibly be.  I'm going to always go that extra step to make sure she's safe and that she knows I'm here for her the way she needs me to be.  Revolutionary love requires that level of humanism.  

I'm not saying all of this happens without struggle.  Revolutionary struggle is based on principles of dialectical and historical materialism.  If you want to become a better soccer player, a better pianist, a better writer, you have to practice.  Over and over again.  Sekou Ture told us "quantity makes quality."  We have to make mistakes in order to learn how to move forward and do things better.  I make mistakes all the the time.  I worry about things.  I have dysfunctional ways of looking at things.  I'm a product of this backward society.  The difference between revolutionary love and capitalist love is revolutionary love always acknowledges the dysfunction and continuously finds ways to work through it whereas capitalist love spends all its time and energy trying to cover up and dismiss the dysfunctions, thus making them more explosive in the process.

Another problem is that most people in this capitalist reality are unhappy with their lives and all the material possessions purchased do absolutely nothing to eliminate that unhappiness.  In fact, the pressure of having to pay for all that stuff usually enhances the stress.  As a result of all this trauma, most people, being unhappy themselves, are not positioned to be happy for you.  So, when you have a revolutionary love relationship where you are trying to embody the values I've discussed here, don't expect lots and lots of people to be there in support of your union.  Its not going to happen.  That's why that covenant between you and your partner is so very important.  Anyone who tries to create a problem and drama for my partner has an instant enemy in me.  And, I'm not going to be anyone's first choice for an enemy, ever.  I feel like I have the same value from her so the haters are just going to have to hate because we are committed to not bragging about what we have, but hopefully, helping others learn about what we are doing well.  And studying others to figure out how to improve what we can improve upon.  

Just imagine for a moment if all of our personal relationships were governed by humanist and collective principles?  Our communities would be vibrant and productive. Not destructive.  Our relationships would be powerful and forward moving.  Not divisive and negative.  This is what we all should be striving for.  I'm very thankful for the opportunity to make a very important contribution to this crucial area of our lives and our work.  The stronger our relationships, the stronger our organizations.  The stronger our organizations the stronger our communities.  The stronger our communities, the stronger our world will be.  So, if you are committed to us becoming stronger, the next time you feel that special something when you look at someone, be thinking about whether you are looking to build a revolutionary covenant with that person?  Or, are you just seeing them as a means to an end?  Push yourself to rise up.  Our future generations are depending upon us.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    I don't see disagreement as a negative because I understand that Frederick Douglass was correct when he said "there is no progress without struggle."  Our brains are muscles.  Just like any other muscle in our body if we don't stress it and push it, the brain will not improve.  Or, as a bumper sticker I saw once put it, "If you can't change your mind, how do you know it's there?"

    Archives

    January 2023
    June 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly