Category Archives: Uncategorized

The South Atlantic Treaty Organization

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Considering that the North Atlantic has its NATO (which stretches in extent from [N to S] the North Pole to the Tropic of Cancer and [W to E] from the eastern Coast of North America to the eastern coast of the Meditteranean), a military/political organization that makes sure that all further post-WW2 conflicts in the North Atlantic Sphere of Influence will be solved on the primary by dialogue, compromise, partnership, and resolution (and secondarily by the force of arms), why doesn’t the South Atlantic (that is, the rest of the Ocean south of the Tropic of Cancer all the way down to the South Pole) have a SATO?

I mean, true, there IS a South Atlantic Zone of Peace and Cooperation that came about as a result of the need in the 80’s to defuse all further Cold War tensions which may have existed in that area of the world (among others), but I believe that if any of the countries in the South Atlantic, especially, if no one else, Brazil and South Africa, are ever going to come out of the long shadow of the Northern Hemisphere, it’ll only happen if the countries of (sub-Saharan) Africa and Latin America decide to come together in the same manner (or in an even closer cohesion) as the North Atlantic countries do, and make up their minds on how they plan to defuse the current crises of the Third World through either political or military means, among them being the lingering effects of slavery, colonization, imperialism, ethnocentrism, slave trading, dictatorship, and neo/post-colonialism.

Here’s a couple of links:

Continue reading The South Atlantic Treaty Organization →

Yesterday, in 1965, Malcolm X left the building…

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*sigh* Today was depressing in a couple of ways…We went to Chuck E. Cheese for my younger nephew’s early b-day party (since Connie won’t be here for his real b-day and all)…and I was wondering even more about shapeshifting and how to accomplish it.

And I was grossed out upon impact by this: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/malcolmx/xmorgue.html

That may have set the mood for the day, I guess…and that may have been the sickest photo that I’ve ever come across (in my f*cking life!!!)

Anyway, as some of you may have heard, Malcolm X was assassinated yesterday in 1965 (how surprising that it was President’s Day as well, lol). It makes me sad that the guy died in that manner, as if he was on the verge of “becoming”, and all of a sudden he was pulled from the stage (just like that, *snap*), as if somebody didn’t want that to happen.

I mean, if he had lived beyond that point, what would’ve become of him? One can only wonder…

Many believe that he died an untimely death, that he left the world before his time was suppose to come. However, I believe that he died at the right time, in the right place, for the right reasons.

Why?

Let’s revisit the “what if?” factor. If he had lived, he may have retained the qualities which have, in the years since, made him an icon of the martyr type, but gradually, he would have resigned to a similar fate that has befallen many a rapper (like Chuck D) or civil rights leader (Jesse Jackson): becoming an entertainment piece for the accomodation of “White America” (quoting Eminem) in order to obtain wealth off of their legacy.

It happens alot these days, but I, personally, could never get used to that trend. Every time I see that happen to an MC (like Talib Kweli or BEP) or some other person who is famous for something that he does or pursues within the arts realm, I feel like something within that person, something which dedicated him exclusively to the art form, has died. And I feel sorry for the person, since it means that an era of some sort has officially passed.

So in that case, it was actually fortunate for Malcolm to depart in that particular, though somewhat agonizingly-grisly, manner. He left a legacy in his wake that only begs and pleads for further, deeper, longer-term investigation in the future, and I’m glad that he left that legacy for us, exactly 40 years after he gave his book a “surprise ending” of sorts.

And, what’s even more interesting, is that I’ve often been told by others who see my face everyday that I actually LOOK like him, lol (the 7th and 8th grade kids at the parochial school often ask me to pose with a finger to the side of my head for sake of comparison between me and a famous photograph of a thinking Malcolm). I happen to share alot of ideas, ideals and values with him, and I’ve always admired him like a personification or embodiment of human tragedy.

Is it actually possible that I could be his reincarnation?

An interesting survey

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TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF – The Survey
Name: Harry Underwood
Birthday: February 5, 1987
Birthplace: Castle AFB, California
Current Location: Warner Robins, GA
Eye Color: brown
Hair Color: off-black
Height: 5’10
Right Handed or Left Handed: Right
Your Heritage: Black African, native American
The Shoes You Wore Today: church shoes
Your Weakness: the things i say IRL
Your Fears: being misunderstood
Your Perfect Pizza: dont have one
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year: go to college in california with all expenses paid
Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger: lol
Thoughts First Waking Up: oh crap, another school day
Your Best Physical Feature: dont have one
Your Bedtime: in the early morning
Your Most Missed Memory: Hawaii, Xmas/New Years 1995
Pepsi or Coke: Coke
MacDonalds or Burger King: either or
Single or Group Dates: neither
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: dunno
Chocolate or Vanilla: either or
Cappuccino or Coffee: cappuccino
Do you Smoke: nope
Do you Swear: as in curse? yes
Do you Sing: yep
Do you Shower Daily: i shower in uneven intervals throughout the week
Have you Been in Love: not that i remember
Do you want to go to College: yep
Do you want to get Married: nope, unless im sure that id be able to handle it (not any time soon, anyway)
Do you belive in yourself: sometimes
Do you get Motion Sickness: nope
Do you think you are Attractive: i doubt it
Are you a Health Freak: nope
Do you get along with your Parents: generally, but theyre divorced, so i live with my mom
Do you like Thunderstorms: yeah, i guess so, especially if its windy
Do you play an Instrument: yep, drums, but havent touched the sticks in a long time
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol: hell no
In the past month have you Smoked: hell no
In the past month have you been on Drugs: nope
In the past month have you gone on a Date: nope
In the past month have you gone to a Mall: yep
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos: nope
In the past month have you eaten Sushi: nope
In the past month have you been on Stage: nope
In the past month have you been Dumped: nope
In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping: nope
In the past month have you Stolen Anything: nope
Ever been Drunk: nope
Ever been called a Tease: not that i know of
Ever been Beaten up: yep
Ever Shoplifted: nope
How do you want to Die: how should i know? whatever happens, happens
What do you want to be when you Grow Up: professor and political activist
What country would you most like to Visit: Hawaii
CREATE YOUR OWN! – or – GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

A new online radio station

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I’ve had this idea for a long while…

A new online radio/tv network called “Africana.fm”, which will broadcast news, talk, and music every three hours.

It will, obviously, be geared toward Black communities which are located in those countries where English, Arabic, French, Spanish, Portuguese, or Dutch (and, by inclusion, Afrikaans) are either the predominately-spoken languages or the official, if not necessarily popular, languages of government, so it’ll be broadcast on 6 separate streams for each of the 6 languages, on the same schedules, so that most of the target audience can be reached (that is, if they either have the Internet at home or have found a way to jerry-rig a computer to a stereo system in, say, their car, and turn the volume up LOUD, so that the whole neighborhood can hear it, lol).

Of course, the schedule will proceed as follows:

Afternoon: 2 pm to 5 pm
Early Evening: 5 pm to 8 pm
Evening: 8 pm to 11 pm
Midnight: 11 pm to 2 am
Late Night: 2 am to 5 am
Early Morning: 5 am to 8 am
Morning: 8 am to 11 am
Midday: 11 am to 2 pm

The hourly news will broadcast every 1st hour of each schedule segment, while talk will broadcast every 2nd hour and Music will be heard on every 3rd. Of course, way will be made if a live event or a movie or special is to be shown. The format that this network will follow will be similar to that shown by http://lfx.co.jp.

The subject matter will, of course, center around sub-Saharan Africa and its Diaspora, especially in the realm of the news (sports, arts, entertainment, politics, culture, and stuff like that).

There will be 6 websites for this network:

en.africana.fm (English)

es.africana.fm (Spanish)

fr.africana.fm (French)

pt.africana.fm (Portuguese)

nd.africana.fm (Dutch)

ar.africana.fm (Arabic)

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Each website will follow the same format:

Front page (with News Headlines by region)
Forum
Blog (livejournal.com/~africana.fm)
Crew Bio/Contact
Listen Links

The news headlines, as expressed before, will be featured by region:

West Africa
East Africa
Central Africa
Southern Africa
Horn of Africa
North Africa (West)
North Africa (East)
Middle East
Western Europe
United Kingdom
Canada
USA (East Coast)
USA (West Coast)
USA (Deep South)
USA (MidWest)
West Indies
Mesoamerica
Guyanas (and T&T)
Northern Andes
Brazil (Northeast)
Brazil (Southeast)
Southern Andes (incl. Uruguay and Paraguay)

Yep, those many, lol X-D

In fact, the news in broadcast form will also proceed in the same exact form, but the news will ALWAYS, in some form or fashion, feature Black communities within them, so that other people of the same ancestry who may live a thousand miles/kilometers away from where the story is taking place will be surprised to know what is actually going on in the Black African community in that distant country or region.

The objective of this network will be to accomplish what I believe is the true and ultimate goal of journalism: to educate, To put the whole public at a point of accountability or responsibility for a newsmaking event in another country. And in this case, the “students” will be the worldwide Black African community at large.

(Not-so) Random Quote:

“

The latest age of slavery has been the enslavement of Blacks by
White people. The memory of this age will persist in the thinking of Black
people until they have vindicated themselves.

This tragic and historic event, the resulting bitter feeling,
and the yearning or the vindication of a whole race, constitute a psychological
motivation of Black people to vengeance and triumph that cannot be disregarded.
In addition, the inevitable cycle of social history, which includes the Yellow
people’s domination of the world when it marched from Asia, and the White
people’s carrying out a wide-ranging colonialist movement covering all the
continents of the world, is now giving way to the re-emergence of Black
people.

”

Muammar Qaddafi, The Green Book

Not that I’m a big fan of him, but I did read his Green Book a night ago, and I was….well…..impressed, I’ll say that much.

OMG, Connie’s back!

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Yep, my sis (conniesa31) has finally returned to the States, after a year of military duty in the hellhole known as Iraq (and congrats to them on the Election thingy). She actually snuck up on me right after we had gotten back home from Books-A-Million in Centreville on Tuesday (and I was like, “omg….”, even though I didn’t go all overly ecstatic, which is something that I’ll only do by myself in front of the bathroom mirror, lol).

Oh, and on Monday, I finally applied for a(ny) job at Books-A-Million, since, of course, I could never ignore a good, socially-scientific book, and I’ve grown up around books since I was aged 5. So I’m sure that it could come (very) easy for me if I ever get hired there (of course, I do look forward to bringing home either a book or a mocha latte from Joe Muggs, which is located within the store, every day).

My big disapointment, though, was that Mom wouldn’t let me buy a “Complete Idiot’s Guide” to Shamanism, since she’s pretty iffy about stuff like that (reminds me of how most African-Americans regard Voudoun with disgusted looks). But I did find a book over there called “Totem Magic: Dance of the Shapeshifter”, which is about discovering your animal guide through Wiccan or other Shamanistic means (of course, she wouldnt let me buy that either….*sigh*)

Anyway, gotta go…

Sorry for the absence (plus, my b-day)

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Yeah, just didn’t necessarily feel like posting much for a while.

Plus, I just went through one of those “hell weeks” again. This one seems to be one of the worst so far. And now I SEVERELY ABHOR a couple of unmentionable names as a result. It’s this kind of people that just gets underneath my skin for all possible reasons. But I’ll save the rest for a later time…say…how about graduation time in May?

But, on to more desirable matters now…

First off, let me get this off of my chest: happy birthday to me (if you all noticed). I finally turned 18 on Saturday (without much event to mark it until later). Among the things that I received over the last week as presents, if you could call them that:

1) my dad sent me a card with 20 bucks in it.

2) NC A&T sent me a card (“from the Aggie family!”)

3) We finally had a b-day party on Sunday, where I had a big single piece of Ice cream cake. Yum…. X-P

4) I received a registration card from the Selective Service System (oh god, no. *_*)

And to top that off, Mom has finally started looking for the tax form from 03, but I doubt that she’ll be able to find it at all…*sigh*

Anywho, I wish unimaginably great things for all of my Aquarian b-day compadres this year. Go Uranus!

Now I’m off to school…

The Anti-empire

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Originally posted here.

“What would happen now? The great imperial system had been completed, Black unity had been achieved among numerous language groups on one of the widest scales in history, from Zambia down to South Africa. cities of stone dotted the land, the Zimbabwe cities north and south were the deathless symbols of a people’s greatness….

….The Emperor Matope also left the country with a great organized religion with a powerful and formally organized priesthood, something unusual in Africa outside of ancient Egypt, Ethiopia, and Abyssinia….

But would there be unity now that the last of the two great personalities around whom unity revolved had silently stolen away in the shadows of the Great Zimbabwe, gone forever? The question arises whenever a great leader passes; political psychology and mass psychology are crucially combined….

There were unifying factors which Matope left behind in his great empire. one was that same organized religion led by a highly advanced and literate priesthood…. The other important factor that should have made unity imperative was the greater prosperity that would flow from economic interdependence and close commercial relations between the constituent states and provinces. The great system of roads and highways, instead of being recaptured by the bush and forests after serving their initial military purpose, could have been converted into permanent national highways, crisscrossing the Empire, and thus serving as the indispensable communication links for administration, trade, travels by the people and, in short, unification. Other factors that should have been a solid foundation for black unity were the similarity of their social institutions and the absolute sameness of their constitutional system.

Yet, with Matope’s death the Empire began to break up. Why? Notwithstanding all the forces mentioned above that should have made for unity and stability, the actual fact is that the traditional African political system was fundamentally and structurally anti-empire. The very circumstances of the endless process of segmentation, of forever splintering off to form little independent mini-states, developed a built-in disunity, reinforced by the attending growth of different languages. But self-gevernment or chiefdom was a way of life, not a theory. Chiefs and Elders, as we have seen, were leaders, advisors and representatives of the people, and not their rulers. The same operating principle prevailed when a group of states united to form a kingdom and kingdoms united to form an empire, but with a disturbing difference: Centralization tended to erode local authority, transferring chiefs from the control of their people to the control of the central government. In the case of conquered territories this change was abrupt and painful. And it was one of the principal resons for later rebellions and the break-up of kingdoms and empires. Therefore, let us say it again, to say that Arabs and Europeans were solely or even mainly responsible for the destruction of all great African states would be glossing over or attempting to ignore the principal internal factor: disunity. What the whites did, Asians and Europeans, was to appraise this continent-wide disunity and “cash in” on it to the fullest extent possible. They did not have to divide and conquer even, for the Blacks were already divided, just as though they were waiting for the foreign conquerors to come.”

Chancellor Williams, The Destruction of Black Civilization: “Great Issues of a Race from 4500 B.C. to 2000 A.D., Third World Press, 1987

—————————————————————————

From what I’ve noticed so far, such a situation can be related to today’s Africa and how it is constituted.

Considering that sub-Saharan Africa’s traditional political outlook has always been “every chiefdom for himself”, I wonder if that’s one of the major reasons for why human rights are not regarded by most regimes down there. I mean, first off, these countries were former European colonies who were then given their “independence”, but did you ever notice that, except for Eritrea, Namibia and Sudan, there has never been a country in Africa that gained independence from a neighboring African nation?

Eastern Nigeria, a.k.a. Biafra, is an oil-rich area, with so much petroleum-based potential that the region, by itself, should have the same standard of living as Singapore. However, when this area, which is predominately Igbo, decided to secede from Nigeria in reaction to the pogroms against other Igbos who were living in other cities throughout Nigeria by members of the Hausa ethnicity, which resides mostly in northern Nigeria, which is known for being a stronghold of Muslim fundamentalists who have installed sharia law in most of the northern states’ governments, they were, after three years (1967-1970), forced back into the Nigerian fold, at the cost of well over a million lives, and billions of US dollars in property damage.

Also, when copper-rich Katanga province decided to secede from the recently-made-“independent” DRC within the first 5 years of independence (1960-65), that region also was forced back into line by both Congolese and UN troops, after one of the absolute worst examples of general UN incompetency in Third World conflicts.

When Eritrea made a bid for independence in the 1960’s, it took them over 30 long, torturous, bloody years before that bid was granted by the government in Addis Ababa (in 1993). When Namibia made a similar bid for independence from apartheid-era South Africa, not only did it take decades for that bid to finally be recognized (in 1990), but that bid was also tied inextricably with the civil war in neighboring Angola, a civil war that involved the intrigues of the Cold War in the strangest manners (the USSR sending aid to the Angolans and, by turn, the SWAPO independence fighters in Namibia; Cuba sending its own troops to help fight UNITA and the South African Army in the Angolan hinterland; South Africa helping UNITA in Angola while fighting SWAPO in Namibia; and it goes on).

Sudan and its southern rebels have finally signed a peace deal with each other, ending, hopefully and thankfully, 21 years of conflict. The South had sought secession from Sudan because of the domineering ways of the autocrats in Khartoum, and the long-sought-after deal has made a particular provision that may give ultimate credence to the bid (The South has the right to secede from Sudan if conditions do not improve within the next 6 years between the government and the region).

So, why is it that it takes the loss of human life to keep these nations together? Why is it that these nations, on a general scale, have not exercised a deep respect for human rights (despite the constant berations by the heads of state of these nations upon the West for colonization and slavery), and have violated such rights NUMEROUS times in order to keep their national institutions or personalities intact from infracture by the masses? And why is it that secessionist movements have never been allowed to develop in sub-Saharan Africa, even though the act of secession would actually be better for that region?

Is it because of the transplanted European mentality that empires are meant to last as long as they can be preserved (combined with “the end justifies the means”)? Is it because the regions where secession is beginning to be seen as a good idea are economically viable (even potential-wise), and thus would be enough to fight for, on the central government’s part?

And if that is the case, then are such mentalities as the aforementioned the kinds of things that the traditional African political outlook was actually AIMING TO AVOID?

I mean, if the chiefs were tending toward so-called “balkanization”, then consider that it wasn’t necessarily for the sake of the chief, but rather for the people themselves (and then I begin to see the light). If a nation has to preserve its institutions or borders or personalities with the sacrifice of human life, rights, or property, then such things are erroneous and worthless. National unity is bullshit if ordinary citizens who seek for some form of self-determination are jailed, tortured, or murdered. National unity is hogwash if private interests are put up at the forefront of priority rather than public need. Empires are not worth the preservation if humanity and human need is actively spurned by the government.

So basically, the African people are basically anti-empire, quite the oppposite of their European counterparts. To the traditional approach, unity is needed in time of common distress, interest, or cause, but otherwise, tiny sovereignties in Africa would actually do better by themselves, if allowed to go their own ways. So, really, the European approach toward things like politics isn’t necessarily the greatest thing after all.

And the more that such is realized, the better off that Africa will be with itself and, hopefully, the world.