2nd International Garveyist Pan-Africanist Meeting Argentina

 

2nd International Pan-Africanist Garveyist Meeting Argentina 

The Struggle for self-Affirmation & Self-recognition of Africanness in Argentina

February 28th Santiago del Estero city (independecia street 1665)

Argentina is dyed in Pan-Africanist red, black and green. The conferences have been promoted since 2019 by the local section of International IV, the Meeting in Argentina) we (Black Journalist Association in Spain) we were there  

Ms. Leticia Rodrigues: 

Keynot speaking of the meeting wa the general coordinator of the 4th Pan-Africanist Garveyist International in Argentina and head of the Latin American region

                                                    

My father was a black man who was very proud to be African, when I was 12 years old. He  led us to see the Malcolm x movie and he told us that we were not only black women but Africans and we had to fight for it, which led me to commit to organizing and defending my people here in Argentina.

 UhuruAfrika tv Buenos Aires. Abuy Nfubea

Huge success of the 2nd meeting of the Pan-Africanist local group in Argentina (4th international) organized in collaboration with Carla Diaz, a local African artist of enormous prestige, with a keynote address by the general coordinator of the Garveyista Movement Argentina: it has been and is being very productive and exciting. In this historic meeting in the city of Santiago del Estero, a place that in the 19th century had an African population of 68%, being exterminated by the ideology and institutional policies of white supremacy of people like Sarmiento: which explains the massive exile of Nazi criminals to whitewash society and strengthen the high level of racism and denial of Africanness today in Argentine society in the idea that it is a European country in America (see article 25 of the Argentine constitution that still exclusively promotes white emigration today) We have to tell you that with the daily work since 2020, with yesterday's meeting, something new has sprouted in the consciences and hearts of black Argentines.

WHAT IS PAN-AFRICANISM?                                                                                   

Conversation titled: What is Pan-Africanism? " when we said that, we are traying

start the struggle for the affirmation and self-recognition of our Africanness in Argentina, in this society. It brought together artists, Afro activists, academics, politicians and African descendants who participated in the keynote conference to learn about history in an Afrocentric key, advance the affirmation of blackness in a country, the media and authorities impose a narrative that whitens the fields of knowledge. This second meeting was looking for and has achieved it by generating black consciousness in Argentine Afro-descendants:

“It is about blacks coming out of the closet, building a more just and egalitarian society, based on the resentment of our blackness”

Letizia Rodriguez continue: 

"the objective of reaching consensus that allows us to face reactionary discourses and policies, develop public policies and empower the voice of Afro-descendants throughout the Americas to broaden the level of awareness and African rights."

  As the Afro-Argentine intellectual and writer Sandra Chagas stated: 

“this type of event is very necessary to dispute our narrative” for her part, the prestigious artist Carla Diez, promoter of the event: 

“this theme and events are very important here in Argentina and in every place where the Pan-Africanist tries to take root in the consciousness of black people."

Marcela Alarcón...diploma in management of heritage assets, a benchmark for the Afro-Córdoba table: "The importance of this 2nd meeting of Pan-Africanism in Argentina has great significance to collaborate and provide clear knowledge of the Pan-Africanist Movement in the world...I am"

BLACK IS BEUTIFUL 

Mrs Rodriguez pointed up: 

"Our womanist is Pan -Africanist, in the tradition of beautiful and Strong Women like Amy Jaques, Sista Shanice, Sista Antie Jean, Basilisa Mangue, Esther Stanford, Dr. Andreia Beatriz, Affiong l Affiong, Sista Irene Yamba who recently died in Spain, or the presidente of our movement in African continent, Sista Lidia Obiang and especially Winnie Madikizela. Brothers like Samora Machel o Thomas Sankara , they made positive contribution of African women liberation. After centuries of colonialism, apartheid, exploitation of theft and today immigration, impoverishment, attacks and destroying for centuries of the African peoples and families: we work for the Afro cohesion from the thematic unity of the Pan -African creed. Our organization  is open to all the diversity sector of the Argentine black community, but we believe in African spirituality. We are not postsmodern or hypies, or fashion or promote mystic individualism to avoid the responsibility of common action to face the oppression of Babylon together. We are Garveyistas-Abuyists, which means that we need black men as a complement to the construction of a revolutionary alternative that guarantees the success of the ongoing black liberation process. Black is beautiful, therefore: we do not see black men as enemies or oppressors but quite the opposite".

 

NEW PARADIGMA 

Among other topics, during the meeting, they discussed the reference of Marcus Garvey and UNIA, the pan-Africanist creed and identifying as blacks or Africans of a new Garveyist culture that guarantees economic freedom for blacks; of reparation policies of affirmative action, being fundamental the book Afrofeminismo: 50 años de activismo y luchas negras en España 1968-2018

The people who attended were very involved and connected with the topic, since thought and ideas are new here in Argentina, although Leticia Rodriguez recalled that in 1920, a delegation of Afro-Argentine and Afro-uruguayan activists and intellectuals attended the UNIA -ACL convention in Harlem NY.

It was possible to show and demonstrate the other side of the struggle of the black Garveyist Movement that the brothers and the community did not know, surprising many of the similarities in their thoughts that agree with Pan-Africanism and reparation. The seed of the Maroon revolution is installed, we have to continue watering it and we will continue working to consolidate as heirs of the UNIA-ACL the project of Amy Aswood, Amy Jaques and Marcus Garvey accordingly, making words a fact. The impact of the meeting is being a revolution and will change the political discourse and super whitened conscience of the Afro-Argentine and the neocolonial folkloric image of the blacks.

GLOBAL AFRICAN IMPACT 

Among the international leaders who have echoed this extraordinary event are Glenn Wattson, leader of the GAC Global African Congress, Dr Mbolo Etofili Luis Alarcon, and Julius Garvey himself, son of His Honorary Excellency King Marcus Garvey. Who have evaluated its categorization within the reparation models, the pan-Africanist ideological support and the political proposal of the organization, and its communication strategy. For the founder of Afro public policies in Spain "we are assisting nate a historical event since she is an extraordinary brave woman who, assuming her Africanness, calls to recover without complex the legacy of garvey in the country that is considered the whitest in all of america which is a contribution to places where the Afro-Argentinian population is greater, such as Cuba, Brazil or Colombia itself." For his part, Garvey's son with whom the Afro-Argentine leader met a month ago, due to the prologue of a book "Garveyism in Latin America " As stated by the surgeon, he has congratulated and shown his joy for this progress "I am very happy my father launched an edition of "Negro world" in Spanish "It is an honor for me that the African popular bases of the Hispanic American world claim today the legacy of my parents, Amy and Marcus in " said Dr Julius Garvey. For his part, the historic trade union spokesman for GAC in Europe

"For our part GAC we will study the impact of slavery and the continuing discrimination against African-Argentinian and we make recommendations to the Argentine class unions to get involved in supporting local pan-Africanist demands,

because how this historic meeting has turned out

The fight for Reparations for Slavery is Now, not tomorrow"

FIGTH FOR NARRATIVE

As Letizia Rodriguez pointed out: Despite the fact that there was a black president, called Ribadabia, called contemptuously by his contemporaries (Dr Chocolate) cause his dark skin. After the abolition of slavery in Argentina, those emancipated African suffered violent repression, denial of Argentine passport, sterilization of black women, oppression, exploitation and deprivation under Jim Crow laws imposed". These consist in the fact that the elites consider themselves custodians of the racist tradition that emanates from the Hispanic medieval laws of purity of blood that recover leaders and ideologists of the homeland such as Sarmiento treason of Juan Domingo Perón linked with the III Nazi reich. Recent studies predict that in the northern provinces during Peronism more than 18,000 "morochas" black women were exterilized to eradicate vestiges of blackness following the model of the final solution, whitewashing with Nazi Italian, French, Galician and German emigration like Eichmann or Mengele. As the prestigious historian Uki Goñi explains: "the genocide of Videla and company cannot be understood without that prior basis of genocide and anti-black culture" Historians, leftist parties and Afro activists are still afraid to investigate this Afro derivative of Nazism. 

DURBAN 

"We dont hate white people, in fact in the movement we have white people, but we much teach revolutionary self -love ourselves. We believe in African fundamentalism or Black First the ability of Afro -descendants to generate awareness, economic empowerment that capitalizes our dreams and aspirations, without always depending on the slave master"

The chair women, recognizes the contributions made from Durban 2001 Conference or Chincha Peru 2006  by the different black organizations empowered by political parties. Such aspects like  recovery cultural symbology

as the mother of the captain's nation

to María Remedios del Valle,When asked about the milestone in Colombia, he answers vehemently saying:

Help of a lot of joy for that great political achievement that an African woman was chosen and occupied the vice presidency of a country as important as Colombia, however Mrs. Rodrigues clarifies:

  "Pan -Africanista believe that this victor was not for dancing well in the carnival from Baranquilla or the black intellectuals who repeat the things that the master of slaves says, or by soccer players of the Colombian selection (laughs) but by the strugle of the social bases of the people who went out to the street to say enough, when they killed To Junior Jein: On that wave of electoral spective, the mobilization and Afro -Colombian awareness rides to arm themselves and go out to vote. Among them the Pan -Africanists of Colombia People like Fidel Judge, Yesssinia Mosquera of the Afro Canal or the Vida Verde Grupo Vida Foundation. So she rejects the hegemonic folkloric Negroe intellectual vision in the region, "we are Africans and this is a value that has an end in itself. Thanks assumption of our africanity we built and made psossible the existence of the 4th Garveyist Pan-Africanist International, our strugle for African reparation in Argentina is not diferent in Malabo, Salvador, Chile, Conacry, London, or Barcelona. We have to change this reductionist vision of ourselves and see ourselves as part of African internationalism as Baldw Lumumba says”

Letizia starts from the hypothesis that :

"there are two contradictions within the official black movement of the parties, between the ideological proposal and the intention to assume power based on the conventional norms defined in Eurocentric legislation and tradition, based precisely on the systematic denial of our Africanness, headed by a small elite in Buenos Aires responsible for fundamental decisions, which deny the principle of African fundamentalism of Bob Marley that says, it doesn't matter where you are from if you are black you are African". 

HIPOTHESIS & VISION 

According to Letizia: " on the other hand, have assumed a strange pseudo-scientific theory that they call "From the colonial trunk" that isolates the common Afro-Argentine struggle to the new migrants Senegals, Nigerians or Congolese in subaltern beings, forgetting that the Italians got off from the ship and they are also migrants. It is what in Spain they call Africans and Afro-descendants as if they were different and contradictory categories, a pigmented structure, with whites at the top and Afro intellectuals imitating them. The other, according to the leader of San Juan, is a contradiction between the formal laundering structure and the subaltern postmodern discourse, in which it is proclaimed as an instrument of social change -but without black or pan-African or Afro-centered ideology, but supported by ties that it has established with the civil pigmentocracy deeply removed from the lumpenproletarian African social bases. That explains his intangible behavior and his recent results at the UN, Geneva Switzerland, in the style of William Dubois's 10 talent. The world with love begins with ourselves and we African women,  here in Argentina have the responsibility to give continuity now to the dream of sista mama Irene Yamba and mama  Winnie Madikizela