by Baba Awotunde Dosunmu Yao Faseyin ©2007

Well, it is about that time of year again – the heightened european holiday season. Also, this means it is time to write what seems to be an annual commentary of the subject in relation to Afrikan people. Many of you are familiar with Baba Barashango’s “Afrikan People and European Holidays”. I thought I would chime in on the title with emphasis on Afrikan people who claim and practice indigenous Afrikan spiritual traditions.

Many of you are familiar with the Yoruba word ashe which means according to usage: "power, it is done, affirmation, spiritual energy, kwk". You may ask what does this word have to do with the subject at hand. Ase is a constant energy that Afrikans have known about for tens of thousands of years at least. They knew that ase was in plants, minerals, the soil, nature in general, and humans. We also find that there is ase in the words that we speak. However, know for a surety that there is ashe in the things we DO. When we give credence, in any form whatsoever, to european ideology (hell-a-days, their religion, their lifestyle, kwk) we are giving that pseudo culture of theirs and them ASHE. It is equivalent to giving over your divinity to someone else – a someone that is not deserving of its power.

We are in crucial times being Afrikans in the Yepete – (so-called disapora). We do not have time to be playing around and using other people’s culture when we do not have to do so. So the question stands as to why do we continue. Plus, these people are not playing with us, and they know that the practice of their holidays by us is a good appendage to their religions in the process of our de-Afrikanization. Why do we continue to proudly claim our Afrikan-ness and Afrikan spiritual traditions and still hold on to such anti-Afrikan behavior? It does not matter how subtle the anti-Afrikan behavior is it is still anti-Afrikan. What, in our Ori, makes us want to make thanks taking (thanksgiving) something it is not? Why do I hear so many Afrikans, some of them nationalists, saying that they are celebrating FAMILY DAY and thanking Olodumare for what they have ON THIS DAY? Why THIS DAY? I will tell you why. MANY HAVE NOT LET GO OF THE OYINBO AND HIS/HER WAYS. However, let us go to Odu Ifa on this subject. Odu Ifa Ogbe Oyeku tells the story of the fate of Ororo as follows.

O sare titi o ko iku,
O rin gberegbere o ko arun lona
Adifa fun ororo ti sawo lo ile olokun.

HE ran for long and met death
He walked majestically and met illness
Divined for Ororo,
When his going to Olokun's house.

The story goes that Olokun and Ororo were close friends. One day Ororo went to visit Olokun. When he got there Olokun was not around, but was greeted by Olokun’s wives. They took him to sitting room, and then sent for Olokun letting him know that he had a visitor in his house. Before Olokun left his house he put dried fish on the table at the sitting room where Ororo was. The moment they sent for Olokun, Ororo saw the fish, entered it and started eating it. When Olokun was walking in Ororoi was eating the fish. At that moment he was in such great shame that he can't come out. Olokun instructed his wife to cool the fish for his friend (Ororo).

Olokun noticed that Ororo was not in his seat. He was hoping he went to the bathroom. Ororo heard all what Olokun and his wife were saying, but he can't come out because of the shame and disgrace. They cooked Ororo with the fish without knowing. By the time they expected him to come back they didn't see him . Olokun said thatthey could not wait any longer and that they should eat. The moment they cut the fish they saw Ororo inside the fish. Olokun was suprised, Nje ororo o tori idun o baku lo (He died because of sweetness).

What Ifa is saying is that we should keep away from coveting other people’s things because it can cause disgrace, shame and even death. Let us be satisfied with what we have. Coveting made Ororo to enter the fish, which caused his death. the disgrace, shame, and “death” speak directly to Afrikan spiritual practitioners and europeans hell-a-days. To say that you have retrieved your culture after having been ripped away from it by europeans and arabs, and then turn around and PRACTICE THE SAME PEOPLE’S HELL-A-DAYS you are practicing (overtly or covertly) results in SHAME, DISGRACE, AND "DEATH". What is the death? The “death” comes from the Ancestral realm. The death means that you cannot collectively progress as a people while honoring your Ancestors on one end and SLAPPING THEM IN THE FACE on the other hand. The "death" results in these Afrikan Ancestors’ and Deities’ anger amounting to them abandoning you (or at least not being there for you in this world as strong as they could be). We cannot afford this and I think that most people reading this KNOW this for a fact.

Also in Yoruba we have a term and concept called Isheshe. It is the traditionalism of our people both collective and ethnically. Ifa says that one’s Isheshe is: Olodumare, your Ori, the Ikin Ifa, your mother, your father, and your genital organs. That being said the question then comes about: When practicing or participating in a european holiday, WHOSE ISHESHE are you promoting? To practice a european, arabic, jewish, kwk holiday is to honor somebody else’s Ancestors and yet again place Afrikan people in a position of being the cultural children of the world. Two Kongo proverbs come to mind in relation to this. One states, "One cannot dance with ease in another’s garment". The other states, "Those who sit on the fence are shot by arrows from BOTH SIDES".

We need to quit playing plain and simple. The true nationalists that are reading this should not get upset with me if they are still engaging in such activities. The question that should come to mind is what examples are you exhibiting to practitioners and non-practitioners alike who are observing us as vanguards of the traditions we practice? If we are nation-building and participating in the process of cultural restoration we need to rid ourselves of as many contradictions as possible IN THIS LIFE TIME. For those that are not necessarily nationalists, you still have a responsibility of being uncompromising in your practice of Afrikan tradition. The old “we are not really celebrating thanks taking, Christmas, kwk…” does not pan out. Malcolm X once stated that a pregnant cat placed in an oven and producing a litter does not make that litter BISCUITS all of a sudden. They are still cats.

By the way, shouldn’t it be now common knowledge that thanksgiving was really started to celebrate and give thanks for mass murder that was done to the so-called Indians(You all know that I am not one of those "BIG-UPPERS" of the so-called "native americans", but I just wanted to put that fact out there)? All of the above goes for ALL europeans holidays, INCLUDING "NEW YEARS". I still ask the questions: Why are so many practitioners of Afrikan spiritual traditions still celebrating January 1st as New year’s Day? More importantly, why are so many INITIATED PRIESTS and PRIESTESSES’, especially initiated to Ifa, doing divinations of the year on December 31st, publishing them on January 1st, and telling people this is the reading for the year when THEY KNOW that our year starts nowhere near January 1st which is a european concept celebrating the fake roman god called "janus".

Many Afrikan people here in the unitaed snakes act as if WE do not have our own holidays (no, I am not talking about the de-spiritualized "Kwanzaa" of Karenga's invention). We have hundreds just within the Orisa-Vodun tradition. There are hundreds in the Abosom Akan tradition. Each deity has its own special time and special festival. EVERYDAY IS SACRED TO THE AFRIKAN and we never needed any european to come along and say "THIS IS THE DAY TO CELEBRATE THANKS,THIS IS THE DAY TO CELEBRATE LOVE, THIS IS THE DAY TO CELEBRATE THE NEW YEAR (even though it is not your own), THIS IS THE DAY TO CELEBRATE THE DEAD, katha wa katha...". Wehn will we just stop playing with our Ancestors? We do not need any form of foreign ideology to validate us as the world's ONLY humans.

Finally, think about this Afrikans: Ever thought about why our children lie so much sometimes? Answer: BECAUSE WE TEACH THEM TO LIE EARLY ON WITH THESE CONTRADICTORY ACTIONS.

Odabo

[1] ADDENDUM: Though the foci of this article is on practitioners of Afrikan spirituality the information therein is for ALL Afrikan people, especially those wishing to break the chains of psychological and spiritual enslavement. I have focused on practitioners of Afrikan spirituality because in many ways they should be the vanguards of the social, political, spiritual, and cultural health of the overall Afrikan communities. We stronly recommend the 2 volume set, "Afrikan People and European Holidays: A Mental Genocide" by Baba Ishakamusa Barashango (ibara torun). Also, we recommend the independent research of these hell-a-days to all Afrikans.