Nia

The challenge of Nia

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We are not living at the apex of African civilization. In fact, we must face the unfortunate reality that our civilizations, our societies have been reduced and that their resources—intellectual and material—have been usurped to serve as a foundation for the current world order. Our orientation towards the present condition is most instructive as to our vision for the prospects of the African world–meaning do we acquiesce to our oppressors, or do we resist and join a struggle to achieve our restoration?

Nia challenges us to choose the latter path. It challenges us to understand that we are not struggling for the sake of our personal aggrandizement or for a place within the established order, but are struggling “to restore our people to their traditional greatness”. The question of restoration raises urgent questions about the “source material” that informs our efforts. In 1987, speaking in Aswan at the Conference of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations, Jacob H. Carruthers stated, “We cannot move our people by borrowing our foundations from other people.” Carruthers challenges us to draw fully and deeply from the deep well of African thought, and to apply these insights to the malaise confronting us, recognizing that our history, our culture carries within it the seed of our potential renewal.

Nia also challenges us to realize that the restoration of our people must be the driving force in our lives. It is work that must animate our thoughts and give purpose to our actions. We recognize that though our enemies are legion, that each act of resistance is a victory in that it defies the lie that we are a people bereft of a history and future possibility, and that the key is to sustain such resistance, enabling it to grow in scale and intensity until victory is achieved.

Ultimately, Nia is a challenge for us to live lives that makes us worthy of remembrance, to be like those ancestors whom we call upon when we pour libations, true exemplars of our determination to be free, true models of African excellence.

Nia

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“Dr. Anderson Thompson states for a people to lose their culture – the knowledge of who they are – they lose the very foundations upon which their individual existence and their society is based. For African people, this loss must be offset by way of the African Principle. The African Principle equips and guides each African person with a grand vision of the future; this is a vision extending beyond personal interests. As such it becomes the embodiment of the vital interests and moral foundations of the African world community. Ultimately, the African Principle equips and guides each African person towards a grand vision of the future.

This grand vision of the future articulates where we are going as a people. It provides a framework via which each of us might understand our role and contribution. It provides a focal point for our collective consciousness—attuning us to the most pressing questions that we face, and marshaling our intellectual and material resources to address them. A grand vision of the future moves us beyond the tendency to drift aimlessly in a sea of other people’s priorities and worldview. It places us squarely on African ground, from which we can define reality for ourselves, and from this point of clarity—reshape the world.”

-From “Anderson Thompson, Intellectual Warfare, and the Foundations of the Chicago School of African-Thought” by Kamau Rashid