Editorial
"The university wants to continue its founding spirit of creating a decolonized intellectual elite, one that awakens to the cause of our people, ready to defend Africans from colonialism. In the face of an anti-African academy..."
As we mark almost three years since the first World Summit of Solidarity with the Sahel, convened in Barcelona by the Pan-Africanist Movement IV International, we begin the monthly celebration of Garvey Month with a special act of well-deserved recognition for one of Africa's greatest sons: Felipe Noguera. The same character of open international aggression that today determines our contribution to the consolidation of the AES is the same one that once fostered a "Garveyist" consciousness in our African countries, albeit a limited one. This meant that local oligarchies, fearful that the audacious neocolonialism of France Afrique would ultimately affect their interests of perpetual internal domination, felt compelled to participate.
This was the case with PASTEF in Senegal and PDGE in Malabo, the consequences of which the African people are suffering today. In his work, "Solid Foundations of a Federal State of Black Africa," Cheick Anta Diop made it clear that this would happen. And that is what AES represents today. This explains why prominent oligarchic leaders like Maky Sall and Teodorin Nguema are implementing perverse adjustment policies that have already failed by impoverishing and plundering the oil resources of the African people. The starting point for these neocolonial policies, typical of the CFA franc, lies in the reformism of the governments inaugurated by Nelson Mandela, Tabo Mbeki, and others, and these policies are the consequence of the defeats our red, black, and green flags are suffering in South Africa and Africa today. The persecution and murder of African citizens from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Malawi by other Africans is unacceptable. However, it was the Marikana miners' massacre in August 2012...where we began the uprising, it was when the Fourth International said enough! and we began to develop an anti-colonialist womanist consciousness work that corresponded perfectly with the phenomenon caused by the growing territorial expansion of the franco CFA, fortunately now in retreat in Mali. The accumulation of this emerging consciousness enabled the accumulation that gave rise to the Pan-Africanist awakening, which deepened in the following decades, especially in the wake of the terrorist actions of French imperialism that assassinated Gaddafi, destroyed Libya, and destabilized Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. These countries represented a qualitative development of the CFA franc's expansionism, which was no longer limited to exporting Islamic terrorism, disrespecting the borders of its neighbors, or coveting Niger's remaining raw materials under the tyrant Mohamed Bazum. Instead, it threatened the sovereignty of independent and formally constituted countries, attempting to recolonize them and transform them into vassal states, subject to its domination and exploitation.
In response, a historical vanguard emerged in the Caribbean from the Diaspora, identified with the teachings of Thomas Sankara. This vanguard, comprised of women and the masses—students, emigrants, the impoverished—and led by intellectuals such as Felipe Noguera, highlighted the revolutionary character of that Garveyist consciousness manifested in the historical and cultural values that underpinned the project of the Fourth International. These values were presented as evidence of a conscious class seeking to overcome the crisis of the Black elite described by Harold Crousse in 1932. Twenty years later, for the Fourth International, Felipe Noguera represents many things, among them the rejection of the oppressive neocolonial power over Black people.
Therefore, on July 19th, on the occasion of Nelson Mandela Day, the MGU will pay him a well-deserved tribute with an honorary doctorate in a solemn academic and activist ceremony. It is excellent news that Malcolm Garvey University has decided to recognize our brother, comrade, and professor Felipe Noguera with an honorary doctorate—the highest academic degree—for his many merits and sacrifices throughout his career as a revolutionary and Pan-Africanist activist in Africa and the Caribbean, dedicated to Black liberation and the principles of Garveyism. His political and militant contributions were decisive in raising the flags of RBG, achieving victories, and consolidating the 4th Garveyist International in the Hispanic world, as well as in organizing the 2nd World Summit of Solidarity with the Sahel, held in Madrid, Spain, in 2025. As the university's rector, Dr. Fidel Juez, stated, since the 1970s, Felipe has been on the front lines of the struggle alongside giants of revolutionary education such as Akinyele Umoja, Julius Malema, and others such Abuy Nfubea, Fabian Riesco, Molefi Asante, Sharon Chambers, Aminata Umoja, Runoko Rashidi, Affiong L. Affiong, Esther Ekwa, Buddy Larrier, bro Mbadaka, etc. With this, the university seeks to continue its founding spirit, based on working to create a decolonized intellectual elite that awakens to the cause of our people, always ready to defend the African people from colonialism. In the face of a Eurocentric and anti-African Black academic elite... this means we must be awakeners of consciousness, lovers of faith in Black people, creators of hope, thematic unity, inspirers of a Black theology of liberation and a Maroon epistemology for the liberation and unity of all Africans, both at home and abroad. One Africa, one nation!
The new Doctor Honoris Causa will occupy a chair created for this purpose similar to that occupied by Irene Jamba Jora or Julius Garvey because with his attitude these last 50 years, half a century, Felipe has confronted the forces that keep people captive mentally, spiritually, politically and materially. Felipe's academic recognition goes beyond his many academic merits, as he holds several degrees and master's degrees from various universities, including Harvard. His trajectory of commitment, loyalty, struggle, and activism from within the African working class and lumpenproletariat sectors is also significant. He spent a year in Tanzania working closely with the future Secretary General of the Global Pan-Africanist Movement, Dr. Ikaweba Bunting, and met Tanzanian President Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who introduced him to leaders of liberation movements: Oliver Tambo and David Sibeko (Azania), Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo (Zimbabwe), Samora Machel (Mozambique), Sam Nujoma (Namibia), and Agostinho Neto (Angola). He also worked with Walter Rodney and Kwame Toure in the celebration of Africa Day, Omali Yeshitela in the Nicaraguan revolution, and organized and represented Pan-Africanist and revolutionary forces in the Caribbean.
It was in this context, thanks to Sharon Chambers, that Felipe met MGU during the preparatory summit assembly for the Marcus Garvey World Congress held in Madrid, Spain, during the pandemic. Indeed, we cannot forget his brilliant biography as a percussionist, as well as his role as Caribbean Coordinator of the Pan-African Federalist Movement and professor at Malcolm Garvey University, where he distinguished himself in the teaching of a titanic epistemic confrontation with the narrative of Babylonian captivity, where people were torn from Africa, our homeland, our motherland, and forced to live under foreign neocolonial rule. Colonialism is the system that profits from inequality and teaches Black or African children to accept it as normal. Felipe tells us that this is unacceptable because it is the spirit of slavery operating through institutions, values, and ideas: ideological warfare. Modern societies are not dominated solely by force, but also by ideas, culture, and the invisible manipulation of the collective consciousness. Why do Black people defend systems that harm them? Why does modern power, or neocolonialism, no longer need to impose itself violently? What if much of what we Black people think has been shaped by our surroundings? How can Africans confront cultural hegemony, and how can we ensure our ideas remain present in today's media, social networks, politics, education, and culture? Felipe not only helped us understand the workings of white power in Blackface, or neocolonialism, in contemporary society, but also helped us question how Black thoughts, opinions, and desires are constantly influenced and suppressed. For Maroons, Felipe's life and work serve as an example, and we take his story seriously, but we also apply it to the modern experience of the Trap era, the suffering of Black people under slavery, colonialism, police violence, the persecution of migrants, and other persistent injustices. So when we Garveyists speak of Felipe, we don't usually refer to a single quality or an isolated past event or writing, but to the best of ourselves—that is, an intellectual, sociopolitical, and ethical reference point whose light shines brightly. A Garveyist pattern of conduct, an African model of a Caribbean maroon. At a time when the Hispanic Black intellectual elite is profoundly abject and mentally hijacked, boasting of owning 500 pairs of shoes, we don't want to overlook the need to once again call attention to the militancy of the Fourth International, to be vigilant with our enemies of yesterday and today. And we say this so that we must watch over and combat without hesitation the African Uncle Tom academics of Spain, as well as the rest of our enemies.Since these people, as has become clear, are waging a campaign of technological neocolonialism subsidized by European governments, based on slander, a baseless campaign of defamation based on insulting, discrediting, offending, and humiliating His Excellency the Honorable King Marcus Garvey, and we cannot tolerate this under any circumstances. We must stand firm. We tell them that neither slander nor defamation nor lies will make us retreat from the path we have chosen: what is that path? The path of independence, self-determination, the struggle for freedom, the path toward creative work. Therefore, from the magazine African Reparation, voice of the 4th International, we want to thank and congratulate the rector and faculty of Malcolm Garvey University (MGU) for such a magnificent and wise decision to honor Felipe as a reflection of the best in ourselves.
¡Uhuru!
abuiñ akiba
alumán da chini osu
Comentarios
Publicar un comentario