From The Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Speak Truth, Do Justice, Live Peacefully
“So speak truth, do justice
Be kind and do not do Evil.
Truth travels on a narrow path
But the wicked wander on a wide road.
Speak truth, do justice
Do justice and speak truth.
For one who is righteous is supported by the Divine” Odu Ifa The Ethical Teachings 33:1
Contrary to the lies, deceit and propaganda perpetrated by our Caucasian tormentors and oppressors, our African ancestors throughout the continent created and maintained a deep and abiding moral, ethical and metaphysical foundation that wove throughout the various tribal and ethnic groupings. These values were the glue that bond them together over and beyond merely existing and surviving. When one makes the effort to seek, discover and learn about our history and what the late Jacob Carruthers called “African Deep Thought” we are amazed and awestruck at the profundity we find.
Pioneering continental and Diaspora African scholars like the late Cheikh Anta Diop, Kimbwandende Kia Bunseki FU-KIAU, Jacob Carruthers, and living stalwarts like Dr. Theophile Obenga, Dr. Molefi Asante, Tony Browder, Ra Un Nefer Amen, Kwame Gyekye, Maulana Karenga and others are doing a great work researching, sharing and propagating our African heritage, our spiritual and moral traditions to the world.
Maulana karenga translated the Yoruba collection of ethical and moral teachings called the Odu Ifa. Like all African philosophies and moral guidance it is holistic and covers every aspect of human thought and behavior. Each indigenous African culture had its own version of moral rectitude and instruction that date back to the Nile Valley civilizations that pre-date “Europe civilization” by thousands of years.
In each society a premium was placed on being truthful (full of truth as opposed to deceit), building good character so one’s personal life reflected the ethical precepts that caused the communal society to prosper, thrive and live in harmony and peace. The Odu Ifa is full of such admonitions. In short, Africans when in our right minds untrammeled by foreign and alien ideas, philosophies and behavior (see Yurugu An African Centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior by Marimba Ani, African World Press) are an upright, moral and peace loving people.
Throughout our sojourn in this country many insightful Africans have cautioned against getting entangled in European warmongering, bloodlust and greed. Elijah Muhammad went to jail, charged with sedition because he told his followers not to fight in the US Army during WWII against people of color. His disciple Malcolm X warned against supporting US imperialism in Indo China which was one reason the US government had him killed. Martin Luther King Jr. came out forcibly and often alone against US aggression and imperialism in Viet Nam and calling for a just redistribution of wealth in this country. The US government assassinated him too.
George Orwell said “during times of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” To that I add during times of universal immorality and war, like we are living in today, speaking truth and doing justice are seditious acts. Standing up for truth and justice require courage and sacrifice but the rewards are well worth it. During the 1960’s and 70’s a grass roots mass movement arose to oppose US imperialism and war. Whites of good will and Black folks seeking “Black Power”, political empowerment, economic opportunities and racial consciousness stood against oppressive US racial apartheid at home and racist imperialism abroad. Despite the odds against them, regardless of the vicious and illegal counterinsurgency campaigns of the FBI, CIA, military and police state, they were successful shutting down the war in Indo-China (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), derailing for a short time the military industrial complex apparatus at home and abroad and breaking the back of US de jur apartheid. They spoke truth in the face of government lies and propaganda and demanded justice in the face of violent fascist oppression.
Things are different today. The US loves war and in the minds of the powers that be, war is extremely profitable. War is global and the US elites dare anyone to challenge them. During the “60’s and 70’s what the FBI and CIA did was illegal. Today it is not thanks to the USA PATRIOT Acts I and II and the NDAA. Today we face a determined psychopathic global oligarchy hell bent on war to save the US dollar, the Bank of International Settlements loan sharking hegemony and their control over the vast mineral wealth of this planet. In their megalomaniacal, greedy, twisted minds, the powers that be want to establish a New World Order that calls for the death and annihilation of billions of people (see http://real-agenda.com/2012/02/14/the-world-banks-28-year-old-depopulation-plan/) using wars, induced famine and food shortages, control of natural resources such as water, biological and toxic warfare, wars and weather manipulation.
Thanks to 9-11 and the following media and government induced hysteria about terrorism (the US people are in denial about the fact the US government is by far the world’s greatest terrorist organization) to challenge the US war machine is to brand yourself a terrorist and be subject to imprisonment without charge, trial and possible execution merely on the whim of the president. The supreme irony of all this is the US touts itself as a freedom loving democracy has allowed these laws to be passed, has allowed all this to happen just like in Nazi Germany despite have a Constitution that supposedly guarantees and protects the rights of Americans.
The US is about to move past the point of no return. Unlike when it was invading and beating up on weak, defenseless countries like Granada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen, the US have set their sights on Russia and China. There is no easy win here. Conventional weaponry will not be the only weapons employed. Think Electro Magnetic Pulse weaponry, HAARP weather manipulation and nuclear (keep in mind the US dropped two atomic bombs on two Japanese cities that posed no military threat to them whatsoever at a time when Japan was looking for a way to surrender with honor).
If we want peace we must be willing to speak truth, do justice, do justice and speak truth in the face of universal deceit, immorality and insanity. It is our obligation if we want to save the planet, live in peace and harmony to speak out, stand up and be counted in the forces of goodness, righteousness, peace and harmony.
Peace is not merely the absence of outward hostilities and war; peace is a profound inner calm and tranquility that radiates outward in our lives during all circumstances and situations we experience. Inner peace can be contagious just as negative emotions and behavior are. In stead of hysteria and pessimism, peace engenders confidence, contentedness and resolve. We can resolve to be at peace within ourselves and in the world. It is not enough to be against war, we need to embrace peace, personal serenity and be implacable and uncompromising about peace within ourselves and society.
We can be peacemakers. In the 60’s and 70’s we stopped the wars. We can bring the US war machine to its knees again through prayer, meditation and direct action (open resistance and non compliance to government policies that promote enmity, hostilities and war). Henry David Thoreau took a principled stand he went to jail for one night rather than support the US policies of war and slavery. Thoreau refused to pay his poll taxes for six years because he opposed slavery! His aunt paid the tax and the fine and he was released the next day. But he wrote an essay called Civil Disobedience in which he said, “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. The proper place to-day, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less desponding spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. It is there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race, should find them; on that separate, but more free and honorable ground, where the State places those who are not with her, but against her — the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor. If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.”
Gandhi and King used Thoreau’s philosophy to end British colonialism in India and US racial apartheid respectively. The powers that be cannot arrest all of us, detain all of us or gas all of us. We can win if we are willing to sacrifice for the greater good.
Think and act for yourself, think and imagine real peace; what would that be like? Think brotherly love and sisterly affection, compassion and empathy. Make a decision to commit to peace at all costs, no matter what. The best and most practical ways to do this are what our African ancestors said, “Speak truth, do justice, do justice and speak truth, be kind and do no evil.”
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