Last Word

Happy Kwanzaa, from the US Bishops' Conference

An in-house newsletter encourages celebration of a "traditional" African holiday concocted in the 1960s as an alternative to Christmas.

By Diogenes

Kwanzaa, proponents of the celebration solemnly assure us, is not intended as a substitute for Christmas. It isn't?

Faith? Did someone mention faith?

"The Secretariat for African-American Catholics wishes you a Blessed Christmas and... Kwanzaa yenu iwe na heri. (May your Kwanzaa be happy.)"

That cheery greeting closes an article in the December 1997 issue of Conference Call, an in-house newsletter for employees of the US Catholic Conference. The article argues that the celebration of Kwanzaa "reinforces our faith values and magnifies the celebration of the Birth of Jesus." If that statement is true, it would come as a disappointment to the man who founded the Kwanzaa holiday.

In 1966 Dr. Maulana Ron Karenga--a professor of black studies at the California State University, and a devoted believer in African nationalism--looked at the world around him, and found that it was not good. Black Americans were being "exploited" by the Christmas celebration, he believed, and they had no distinctive holiday of their own. So, relying on his own personal philosophy of Kawaida--which he described as "a synthesis of nationalism, pan-Africanism, and socialist thought"--he developed plans for an elaborate seven-day festival which he called Kwanzaa, after the Swahili word meaning "first fruits." Kwanzaa, Karenga said, would be based loosely on the traditions associated with African harvest festivals.

At about this time, readers might be asking themselves why Americans--of any race--would celebrate a harvest festival in December. Could it be that Karenga wanted to introduce a substitute for Christmas?

Yes, the Kwanzaa ceremonies do use some recognizable signs of an agricultural society: the ears of corn representing each child in a family, the fruits and vegetables which are collected to symbolize the products of human toil. But the Kwanzaa celebration also involves some customs and symbols which are suspiciously similar to those of traditional religious celebrations: the candelabra holding seven candles, easily mistaken for a Jewish menorah; the communal cup, reminiscent of the chalice used in the Eucharist; and the exchange of gifts, often associated with a certain other holiday celebrated in December.

Kwanzaa, proponents of the celebration solemnly assure us, is not intended as a substitute for Christmas. It isn't? If Kwanzaa is merely a harvest festival, and/or a celebration of African culture, why is it observed in December? Is it possible, realistically, to celebrate two different festivals at the same time? When African-American families decorate their homes for the seven-day festival--which, for no apparent reason, begins on December 26--do they leave their Christmas decorations up alongside the new Kwanzaa finery?

Most important of all, what beliefs do the celebrants embrace when they observe Kwanzaa? The seven candles of the Kwanzaa light represent the seven principles which, according to Karenga's Kawaida philosophy, should guide the development of African-American identity: unity, self-determination, collective work, cooperation, sense of purpose, creativity, and faith.

Faith? Did someone mention faith? Yes; but the "faith" which is extolled in the Kwanzaa celebration is not any normal form of religious belief. In Karenga's exposition of Kwanzaa, the word is carefully defined; faith means "to believe with all our hearts in our parents, our teachers, our leaders, our people, and the righteousness and victory of our cause."

Did someone mention a cause? Yes. Karenga, when he created this holiday in 1966, at a time when racial tensions were at their peak in the United States, saw his Kawaida philosophy as a way to promote the "revolutionary social change" which he desired.

It is possible, no doubt, to look upon Kwanzaa as a simple celebration of the African cultural heritage--although it is difficult to explain why "traditional" African ceremonies was apparently unknown on that continent until an American introduced them just thirty years ago. And it is possible that African-American Christians could celebrate this odd festival without accepting the philosophical principles of its black-separatist founder. But it is nearly impossible to believe that as Christmas approached, the US bishops' Secretariat for African-American Catholics had nothing better to do than to promote the Kwanzaa festival.