The Message and Meaning of Kwanzaa: Bringing Good Into the World
Read founder's message for the year 2000.
BY: Maulana Karenga
Let us in lighting the candle of Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) wish and commit ourselves to work for the good world we all want and deserve to live in, a world, as the Odu Ifa of ancient Yorubaland says, where there is full knowledge of things, happiness everywhere, peace, well-being, security of person and where everyone can live lives of dignity and decency in a context of maximum human freedom and human flourishing.
And as we light the candle for Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), let us wish and commit ourselves to work for the strengthening of the principle and practice of shared work and shared wealth in society and the world. And let us also wish and work for economic practices that reflect due respect for the dignity of work and the rights of the worker, that link a right to a life of dignity with a right to a decent life, and that demonstrate appropriate care for the poor, responsibility for the ill, disabled and aged, and a right relationship with our environment.
Let us light the candle for Nia (Purpose) with a wish and commitment to work for the realization of the collective vocation of restoring the rightful power and proper place of African people in the world and of daring greatness through the amassing and using of knowledge to serve and do good in the world. For it is written in the Husia that "the wise are known by their wisdom, but the great are known by their good deeds." And let us remember that our ultimate purpose is found in the teachings of our ancestors in the Odu Ifa which says that human beings are chosen ones (eniyan), divinely "chosen to bring good in the world" and that this is the fundamental meaning and mission of human life.
As we light the candle for Kuumba (Creativity) let us wish and commit ourselves to work for a world which is better and more beautiful than we inherited it. And in doing this, let us reaffirm the ancient African ethical commitment to constantly heal and restore the world, a practice called serudj ta in ancient Egyptian. This moral obligation calls on us, everywhere and at all times, in society and in nature, to raise up what is in ruins; to repair what is damaged; to rejoin what is severed; to replenish what is depleted; to strengthen what is weakened; to set right what is wrong; and to make flourish that which is fragile and undeveloped.
Finally, as we light the candle for Imani (Faith), let us wish and commit ourselves to work for a sustained and steadfast belief in the good and the possible in people and in the world, and in our capacity to create good, to find it, cultivate and harvest it and share it in an unlimited number of meaningful and mutually beneficial ways. And let us remember to hold fast to the faith of our forefathers and foremothers who taught us in the Husia that "doing good is not difficult. Just speaking good is a monument for those who do it. Indeed, those who do good for others are actually doing it for themselves." For they are truly building the world they want and deserve to live in. Heri za Kwanzaa (Happy Kwanzaa)!
Dr. Maulana Karenga is creator of Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba; professor and chair of the Department of Black Studies at California State University, Long Beach; chair of The Organization Us and the National Association of Kawaida Organizations (NAKO); author of the definitive book on Kwanzaa titled Kwanzaa, A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture. For current information on Kwanzaa see: www.OfficialKwanzaaWebsite.org and for information on The Organization Us see: www.Us-Organization.org.
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