Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Why ‘lifting every voice and singing’ ignites situational awareness

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will praise my God to my last breath! May all my thoughts be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord. Let all sinners vanish from the face of the earth; let the wicked disappear forever. Let all that I am praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. – Psalm 104:33-35 (NLT)

The celebration of Black History is acknowledged in the month of February each year. It serves as a reminder of the struggles of African Americans against the institution of racism, which was given birth to the horrors of slavery. “Situational awareness” serves first of all to identify the ongoing positive responses of people everywhere giving attention to those [still] suffering after a 7.0 earthquake hit the capital of Haiti, Port-Au-Prince. 150,000 lives were snuffed out and hundreds more were left homeless with out shelter, water, food, clothing, and medicine. Great appreciation is given to those humanitarian-relief agencies; one most noticeable is our own United Methodist Church that contributed over 11 million dollars, to aid those in need.

Secondly, “situational awareness” on the other hand allow us to question the claims of some that think they have the right answers for the disaster of Haiti. A celebrated TV evangelist made it a point of view that in the early 18th century, the Haitian leaders made a pact with Satan to the extent that if he helped them to defeat the French, they would serve him. So, the Haitian government and its people literally started its downfall of becoming one of the poorest nations on the Western Hemisphere. Witchcraft and sorcery became dominant features of satanic worship. Perhaps there is some validity to this, but certainly there is room for further investigation, which leads to the third observation of “situational awareness” that deals with a bit of history.

1791 was the year well remembered as the beginning of the largest and most successful slave rebellion initiated by slaves. By 1803, the Haitian Slave Revolution ended not just slavery but French control over the colony. In what was known as sporadic outbreak confrontations, the seed for change began with French revolution in 1789 that witnessed a new concept of human rights, universal citizenship, and participation in government. Actually, France had gotten hold of a good thing in Saint Dominique, the early name for Haiti, in such commodities as: sugar, coffee, indigo, and cotton generated by an enslaved labor force. It became a wealthy French overseas colony.

Pitted against each other were five sets of interest groups in the colony: two sets were white planters (owning slaves) – numbering 40,000 in all, and the remaining three were of African descent – yielding a total slave population of 500,000. Many of the whites had begun to support an independence movement that began when France imposed steep tariffs on the items imported into the colony. The planters were extremely disenchanted with France because they were forbidden to trade with any other nation. Furthermore, the white population of Saint-Dominique did not have any representation in France.

Despite their calls for independence, the two white groups remained committed to keeping blacks enslaved. You could imagine the outcome. Being in bondage was always an incentive to rebel; in fact, the slaves were never willing to submit to their status and with their strength in numbers (10 to 1) colonial officials and planters did all that was possible to control them. There was some help initiated in Paris, as the French General Assembly devised new legislation aimed at giving some autonomy to the various colonies at the local level. Yet it allowed free citizens of color [who were substantial property owners] to participate, but instead of offering a solution, it generated a further division. Anyway, as time would have it, the bottom would fall out.

Led by a former black slave named L’Overture, the enslaved would act first, rebelling against the planters from 1791-1792. In a time frame of two years, they controlled a third of the island. Despite reinforcements from France, the area of the colony held by the rebels grew as did the violence on both sides. Before the fighting ended, blacks and whites were killed by the thousands. Nonetheless, the former slaves managed to stave off both the French forces and the British who arrived in 1793 to conquer the colony, and who withdrew in 1798 after a series of defeats by L'Overture’s forces.

From1801-1803, L’Overture would conquer Haiti and surrounding colonies abolishing slavery and elevating himself to Governor-General for life. With a change in leadership in France [along with fresh incentives for battle strategies], L’Overture would be captured and both French rule and slavery would be restored. L’Overture was taken and sent to France where he died in prison in 1803. Jean-Jacques Dessalines, one of L’Overture’s generals and himself a former slave, led the revolutionaries at the Battle of Vertieres on November 18, 1803 where the French forces were defeated. On January 1, 1804, Dessalines declared the nation independent and renamed it Haiti. France became the first nation to recognize its independence. Haiti thus emerged as the first black republic in the world, and the second nation in the western hemisphere (after the United States) to win its independence from a European power.

Lift Every Voice and Sing, by James Weldon Johnson, is the thematic mantra {used in prayer and incantation} of African Americans. Yet is cherished by those not only of African heritage but by those that believe God has always been active in lives of the dispossessed and the disenfranchised. God has always been active all the times really. The first stanza of the song goes like this:

Lift every voice and sing till earth and heaven ring.
Ring with the harmony of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise as the listening skies.
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Now compare once more Psalm 104: 33-35:

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. I will praise my God to my last breath! May all my thoughts be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord. Let all sinners vanish from the face of the earth; let the wicked disappear forever. Let all that I am praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

In both James Weldon Johnson’s first stanza of his famous song and Psalm 104:33-35, there is a need to cry out with singing praises and adoration to God who is worthy to be praised. Because there is a sense in 1) knowing that God has provided eternal liberty, 2) knowing that rejoicing is a form of praise, 3) knowing that the choice to think pleasant thoughts honors God, and 5) knowing that sin and wickedness hinders praise to a Holy God. Selah

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