African Nova Scotia under siege! Do we have the leadership competence to free us?

Dr. Harvi H. Millar

Africentric Learning Institute

“If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.”
― Carter G. Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro

The struggle for progress by African Nova Scotians in this province has a 400-year history.  Brought here through many routes (some forcibly and others gambling on a future of hope) African Nova Scotians risked their lives to escape the hardships of European enslavement in the United Sates in order to create a better life for themselves and their families.  Over the next three centuries the quest for freedom, belonging, opportunity, education, power, influence and the like, would see a constant battle between African Nova Scotians and their White oppressors. African Nova Scotian communities were isolated, built on desolate land, inaccessible, and had none to limited resources.  The thought of educating themselves was a far-flung goal that seemed impossible to achieve.

In spite of the odds stacked against our people, African Nova Scotians survived and are here today because of resilience and tenacity, grounded leadership, the valuing of life and the will to live, the desire to create a better life, the willingness to die for a higher purpose, patience, and a strong spiritual being.  Today, looking back, many of us would view that segregated experience as evil and rightfully so – a grim reminder of the retribution of our White oppressors and the destructive potential of a heartless soul.  But even while we chide that experience, Sankofa, an Akan principle that states that we must look back and learn from the past as we go forward, implores us to look back at that history and learn from it as we forge ahead.

There are many powerful lessons in our segregated history that speak to how we ought to lead for continued growth and progress in our world today.  Ironically, the isolation and segregation of African Nova Scotians created an environment for many of the critical success factors for progress to exist.  Some of these factors include: 1) a very clear demarcation of who and what the African Nova Scotian community was.  Their African identity and culture was never in question. Many of the institutions that were created bore names that unequivocally identified them as African – names such as the African United Baptist Association (AUBA) and Africville. 2) In spite of the barrenness of the land and its insufficiency, there was collective land ownership – communal land that people could farm to feed themselves, use to house themselves, and use to create an economic existence through trading with the wider society. 3) Kept out of White institutions, African Nova Scotians had to create their own such as churches and schools – a common goal and common faith bound them together. 4) Living in isolated communities, African Nova Scotians were able to create their own system of “governance” – leaders emerged who had to learn to trade and negotiate with White institutions.  In the early days, much of the leadership came through the AUBA churches and they served to empower African Nova Scotians spiritually, politically, socially, and educationally.  That kind of leadership today is referred to as servant leadership. 5) Protection of the community was everyone’s business – the sense that if you hurt one, you hurt all.  This is the fundamental principal of the Zulu philosophy of Ubuntu – “I am because of you”.  Collectivism was the way of the community, and the advancement of the community as a whole was primal in the struggle for progress. 6) A powerful vision of statehood. In a recent presentation at the Canadian Association of Black Studies in Halifax by Professor George Elliott Clarke, he stated that it was Rev. Richard Preston’s dream that the African Nova Scotian Community would stand alongside the great nations of the world.  What is clear is that Rev. Preston saw the communities collectively as a “nation within nation”. His dream of international statehood could only be attained if the African Nova Scotian Community declared its “sovereignty”, became more self-reliant, and work assiduously to protect that sovereignty. In essence, the dream was a dream of independence and sovereignty.

Today in our post-segregation era, our path to progress has the texture of a nomadic journey. The goal of a “sovereign nation” no longer shines as a rallying beacon.  Instead, progress is defined and pursued in as many ways as there are African Nova Scotian organizations, and for the most part, individualism has superseded collectivism, There are several forces and factors that have conspired to, in effect, destroy Richard Preston’s dream of a “sovereign nation state”. Those include among others:  1) Our growing secularity which has diminished the political, social, and educational influence of organizations like the AUBA. Instead we have witnessed a proliferation and in some cases the cessation of organizations such as: NAACP, George Washing carver Credit Union, The NS Home for Coloured Children, the Black United Front, BEA, ACEP, CAYG, BYF, Rate Payers Associations, the Black Cultural Centre for NS, and others, each with their own agenda.   Hence leadership in the African Nova Scotian community has become fragmented and vulnerable.  2) Our people have both physically and psychologically checked out of our traditional communities to live among mainstream society making it difficult to assert the boundaries of community and to mobilize community in the fight for justice, equality, and sovereignty.  Further, the demographic nature of what is left of community has changed significantly over time.  As former citizens have moved out, they’ve been replaced by non-African Nova Scotians.  This further complicates the demarcation of community. 3) The social, political, economic, and educational needs of the community are now advocated for by a multitude of organizations primarily working in isolation from each other without the semblance of a unifying philosophy, vision, or cultural ethos. Many of these institutions, instead of advocating for sovereignty and self-determination, are rather aiding an abetting the perpetuation of a vision of our community by mainstream society of a “Welfare State”. Such an attitude held by local government in particular, and unchecked by our organizational leaders, allows for a paternalistic and disrespectful treatment of both African Nova Scotians and their organizations.  4) The post segregation era has allowed organizations to gravitate to a false sense of comfort and security in arrangements with the local government that are touted as partnerships and strategic alliances.  Close examination however will show that the structure and agenda of these arrangements are often not in the best interest of our community. The terms of engagement are often dictated by the government or by African Nova Scotians acting as their brokers.  This landscape is characterized by culture of individualism – survival of the fittest – as opposed to collectivism.  Each organization is attempting to maximize its share of the welfare trough with little consideration for the greater good. 5) The culture of leadership has become Eurocentric in nature.  There has been a doing away with many of the values, norms and practices that fuelled our survival during our segregated past.

I’ve painted two scenarios: a pre-segregation existence in which we see an adherence to African-centred values, culture, and a vision of sovereignty and nationhood for the African Nova Scotian community.  We had leaders who practiced communalism, collectivism, Ubuntu, and held the belief that we are capable of being a nation on an equal footing with the other empires of the world.  In our post segregation existence, we are witnessing a culture of leadership that is increasingly rooted in individualism, that perpetuates the our existence of as welfare state, that is devoid of an African cultural ethos, and that holds out western models of leadership practice as the standard.  Further, we see a form of unhealthy competition that undergirds a culture of “I am the first”.  Many individuals are opting for leadership positions that offer bragging rights about being “the first person to…” with little regard for or interest in the legacy they will or ought to create.  I fear that we have become nomads; directionless as a collective, and that our Eurocentric way of being serves our oppressor and the selfish agendas of many in our communities.

Can we save ourselves?  Cater G. Woodson in his book The Mis-Education of the Negro, made a very important point about leaders: paraphrasing, he said, when the oppressor is called upon to select your leaders, leadership loses its meaning.  Many among the current crop of organizational leaders are transactional leaders. Some have been selected, not by us, but rather, by those that desire to control us. Their principal goal is to maintain order and compliance with a system of rules and regulations that were not designed by the African Nova Scotian community nor were they designed to serve us.  To save us, African Nova Scotian leadership must be African-centred – it must be Africentric in its core.  To be an effective Africentric leader, one needs to be schooled in DuBoisian pan-Africanism, Washington’s economic nationalism, Woodson’s re-education agenda, Preston’s sovereignty philosophy, Garvey’s back to Africa movement, Tubman’s freedom train, Asante’s Afrocentric philosophy, Karenga’s Kawaida theory, Maatan spirituality, Sankofa’s retrospective wisdom, and Chinweizu’s decolonization of the mind, to name a few of our great inspirators.

How much progress the African Nova Scotian community makes in the future will depend on our ability to recapture, reassert and embrace Preston’s sovereignty vision and put in place the necessary systems, practices, and cultural norms to support it.  The following are some key concepts that I feel are necessary to create the kind of liberatory African-centred leadership necessary to move us towards such a vision. 1) Have a profound level of self-knowledge and a deep understanding of our current contextual existence.  Why we are where we are and what needs to be done to free ourselves. 2) We must develop a shared philosophy of success.  Political, economic, cultural, and social sovereignty must be the hallmark of that philosophy. 3) Our leaders must be chosen by us and for us.  Legitimacy of leadership is a prerequisite for success, and our leadership must be re-educated and decolonized. 4) Leadership must be Africentric, driven by African wisdom spiritualism such as Ubuntu, Sankofa, and Maat.  Leadership must not be transactional, but rather transformational.  In African cultural aesthetic, there is no separation between the drummer and the dancer. So too in our political aesthetic, there should be no separation between the leader and the follower.  For without followers there are no leaders.  4) Economic leadership must foster the creation of an economic eco-system with mutually interdependent parts and actors.  Such is a necessary condition for sovereignty.  5) Leadership must nurture a collective defence mechanism against agency reduction.  As we push forward towards sovereignty, there are agents who will push back and seek to weaken African agency.  It is our collective responsibility to guard against what Molefi Asante calls agency reduction.  The demise of the Council on African Canadian Education (CACE) is a testament to the failure of African Nova Scotians to protect itself from those wish to reduce the agency of African people.  We must awake from our sleep and realise the forces that are forming against us. The great liberator Harriet Tubman once said: “I freed a thousand slaves.  I could have freed a thousand more if they only knew they were slaves.” The need for self-knowledge at this juncture is so critical.

In closing, African Nova Scotia is in a vulnerable state and unless we wake up, we will enter a whirlpool that will take us to an abyss of irrecoverable self-destruction.  Here are some quotes from some of our many inspirators that provide with pause for reflection:

Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world…Harriet Tubman

When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world…George Washington Carver

Before a group can enter the open society, it must first close ranks…Stokely Carmichael

Every man has a right to his own opinion. Every race has a right to its own action; therefore let no man persuade you against your will, let no other race influence you against your own…Marcus Garvey

Nationhood is the highest ideal of all peoples…Marcus Garvey

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly…Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. Harvi Millar is a founding member of the African Canadian Project (ACEP), a professor in the Sobey School of Business at Saint Mary’s University, an engineering and management consultant in organizational development and strategy, a freelance columnist on business and African culture, and a jazz musician. Dr. Millar has a strong passion for and belief in Africentricity and African-Centred leadership.