Steven Hutson

The holiday of Kwanzaa will soon be upon us.  This seven-day feast (Dec. 26-Jan. 1) was devised in 1966 by Professor Ronald Everett (he has since invented an “African” name for himself) to promote the ideals of family, community and culture among African-Americans.

Hey, just make some stuff up.

It’s rooted in the seven principles of unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.

In recent years, Kwanzaa has gained traction in the popular media as a warm-fuzzy occasion for family get-togethers and gift-giving.

Hallmark sells Kwanzaa-themed greeting cards that emphasize these principles.  Some might see shades of Marxism in this list, but generally it speaks a message of dignity and empowerment to an oppressed people.

Or does it?

Peruse the Official Kwanzaa Website, and it praises the “values of African culture.”  But what is that, exactly?  Could it be that the the nations of Africa constitute a single monolithic civilization with a shared culture and traditions?

Has anyone ever dared to make such sweeping generalizations about the countries of Europe?  Do they sing “God Save the Queen” in the opera houses of Lisbon, or can you order bratwurst at the cafes on the Champs-Élysées?

In truth the peoples of Africa have never been unified, and it’s dishonest to suggest otherwise.  They’ve waged war among themselves for centuries, since long before the arrival of white colonists or slave traders.  Even today Hutus and Tutsis routinely massacre one another for no particular reason.  Genocides have wiped out millions in Rwanda and Ethiopia, and warlords rule in Somalia and Liberia. (The latter was established by freed American slaves, a formerly oppressed group who quickly became oppressors.)  Mostly it’s not about disagreements over political issues. It’s the Hatfields and the McCoys, ancient rivalries where no one remembers what they were fighting about in the first place.

This false sense of unity is apparent even in the name of the holiday.  The term “kwanzaa” (though not truly a word in itself) comes from Swahili, which Everett calls “the most widely spoken African language.” Another lie: Swahili is common in only a few countries, all of which have at least one other major language.  And they’re all on or near the east coast, whereas almost all American slaves were snatched from the West.  Further, the language isn’t uniquely African; about a third of the vocabulary is borrowed from Arabic (which, by the way is the most common language in Africa).

So exactly what aspect of Kwanzaa is distinctly African, that it should hold special significance for Americans descended from the continent?  Hard to say.

Everett calls it a “pan-African” holiday.  Not quite. Large-scale observances there are rare.  In many isolated tribal areas, the people don’t even know or care who their national leaders are. Will they really set aside their centuries-old traditions and embrace a new holiday brought by a foreigner?

They call it a harvest festival, but no farmer anywhere gathers crops in December.  It uses the symbol of corn, but this grain has absolutely no cultural significance in Africa. It’s indigenous to Mexico, and no place else on earth.

Everett envisioned Kwanzaa as a black alternative to Christmas, a white man’s holiday based on a white man’s religion.  He’s misinformed: The Christian faith thrived in Africa long before it became a major force in Europe.  It appears that John Mark (author of the second Gospel) established a congregation in Alexandria, and some of our greatest theologians (Augustine, Clement, Irenaeus, Athanasius) served as leaders of African churches in the first few centuries.  The Islamic invaders (and their forced conversions) didn’t arrive until the seventh.

A proper celebration requires a wine glass that greatly resembles a chalice that might be used for the Lord’s Supper, and a seven-stemmed candlestick that could easily be mistaken for a Hanukkah menorah.  And then there’s the flag. Again quoting the website, “The colors of the Kwanzaa flag are the colors of the Organization Us, black, red and green.”

Never heard of Organization Us?  It’s a Black Nationalist group, established by Everett in 1965 as a rival to the Black Panthers. They preach the superiority of all things African, believing that black folks should separate themselves from non-blacks, and only patronize black businesses.  And the partisans of this contrived holiday don’t even attempt to distance themselves from this racist philosophy.

Ultimately the tragedy of Kwanzaa, or of Black Nationalism, is that they will never achieve the ends that they seek.  No one has ever empowered a downtrodden people by inventing a false heritage for them.  No society has ever advanced itself by embracing a self-identity based on eternal victimhood.  And will they ever reconcile with the white population of our nation?  Their fiery rhetoric and exclusivist teachings seem to imply that they don’t even desire to try.

Their loss.

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