It can be plainly seen that no one race or nation trusts the other. There is a Universal Suspicion that hovers over the conduct of every great leader representative of his race or nation. It is this suspicion that limited the Washington four pact treaty; it is this suspicion that caused the failure of the Genoa Conference; it is this suspicion that is going to wreck ultimately many of the nations and empires of today, thereby throwing into obscurity many of the races that now dominate the affairs of men. We as a race, are called upon to play our part, and we must do it well. In the spread of this universal suspicion that causes nation to distrust nation, and race to distrust race, we also have our distrust which makes it impossible for us to believe in anyone else but ourselves.
Dissertation on Man
Man is the individual who is able to shape his own character, master his own will, direct his own life and shape his own ends.
When God breathed into the nostrils of man the breath of life, he made him a living soul, and bestowed upon him the authority of "Lord of Creation," He never intended that that individual should descend to the level of a peon, a serf, or a slave, but that he should be always man in the fullest possession of his senses, and with the truest knowledge of himself. But how changed has man become since creation?" We find him today divided into different classes—the helpless imbecile, the dependent slave, the servant and the master. These different classes God never created. He created man. But this individual has so retrograded, as to make it impossible to find him—a real man.
As far as the Negro race is concerned, we can find but few real men to measure up to the higher purpose of the creation, and because of this lack of manhood in the race, we have stagnated for centuries and now find ourselves at the foot of the great human ladder.
After the creation, and after man was given possession of the world, the Creator relinquished all authority to his lord, except that which was spiritual. All that authority which meant the regulation of human affairs, human society, and human happiness was given to man by the Creator, and man, therefore, became master of his own destiny, and architect of his own fate. In process of time we find that only a certain type of man has been able to make good in God's creation. We find them building nations, governments and empires, as also great monuments of commerce, industry and education (these men realizing the power given them exerted every bit of it to their own good and to their posterity's) while, on the other hand, 400,000,000 Negroes who claim the common Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man, have fallen back so completely, as to make us today the serfs and slaves of those who fully know themselves and have taken control of the world, which was given to all in common by the Creator.
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Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey edited by Amy Jacques-Garvey
The Journal of Pan African Studies 2009 eBook
