Love is not a far cry from tangible delight. The tapestry of human life contains ever-rich patterns, shape formations, and constellations reflecting the motif of human connectedness. We see semblances of it in cinema and visual art, we feel its vibration in the tones and symphonies of instruments, we hear it in the lyrics of ‘Soul Music’, we taste it in the rich flavors of Grandma’s cooking, and get a sense of the sentimentality of love through family photographs, love letters, etc. Love is alive, with a pulse and heartbeat; however, its vibrance and fullness lack spiritual substance.
According to an adopted definition of love from Erich Fromm, hooks (1999) defines love as “the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth” (p.19). Therefore, the centrality of love is praxis and action. In the context of Personhood and African cosmology, it is the multidirectional energy, force, and instrument of power that, if nourished with positive regard and projected with communitarian values, will generate positive development, change, and procreation.
Human activities that span every geographical region and every crack and crevice of society are undergirded by high variability in ideals, virtues, and motivational orientations, flowing from a sociocultural, sociohistorical paradigm.
A paradigm is the sociocultural product of a shared worldview and ethos, informed by broad conceptions of cosmic reality, and guided by conceptions of human nature and mankind (Ama Mazama, 2003; Na’im Akbar, 2003). Thus, it forms an underlying structure of organization, orientation, and direction that embeds the political, institutional, cultural, religious, educational, and social lore of a collective group or society.
A paradigm is rooted in an African cosmology when it is developed on the premise of life-sustaining and enhancing principles, to which the assumptions that speak directly to the dignification of humanity, the affirmation of the interconnectedness of all Divine creations, and the immeasurable value placed on universal life principles (i.e., justice, truth, harmony, etc.). In that case, it is safe to deduce the relevance of the contents of love. According to African-centered language and logic, Zola is the Kikongo concept that describes love as an activating, nourishing, stimulating, and reparative energy force that contributes to the capacity of self-healing: Ngolo to be exact (Fu-Kiau, 2003).
Unlike a naturalistic paradigm, love is attributed as an objectified value to the universe’s physical, tangible, and material aspects.
In this instance, its meaning is oversimplified; its properties are segmented; and consequently, love and its contents are socially manufactured to satisfy physical appetites, rather than spiritual or transpersonal hunger for growth or development. Societies and cultures of antiquity, particularly in Ancient Kemet and the preexisting Empire of Ethiopia, valued the spiritually transformative power of a communal-driven, kin-extended love ethic. The intellectual and artistic creations of the pyramids, temples, tombs, and mythological symbols are evidence of an unparalleled communal synergy.
Even though the subtle incursion of Asiatic and Arab peoples and the eventual arrival of the Greeks, Romans, and Hyksos, these ancient Africans reconsolidated, reorganized, adapted to environmental changes, and contributed to the legacy of culture, technology, and institution-building. In contemporary society, specifically within the geographical confines of the United States, a hegemonic culture of extreme narcissism, hypocrisy, and violence impacts the socio-communal synergy incumbent on preserving and advancing non-hegemonic community-centeredness. The dehumanizing sociopolitical forces impacting the socio-communal synergy are astounding: (a) excessive materialism, (b) economic greed, (c) white supremacy (racism), (d) militarism, (e) mass manipulation, and (f) systemic miseducation extending from the underbelly of capitalism and institutional racism (Luther, 2011).
On the other hand, the consequences on the conditions and circumstances of Black humanity are innumerable, but not limited to; (a) poverty, powerlessness, and degrees of insecurity; (b) cultural dispossession and degradation; (c) social disorganization, dysfunction, and confusion; (d) mental, psycho-socio-spiritual, and emotional fragmentation; (e) political volatility and economic upheaval; (f) environmental crises, environmental racism; (g) ecocide; (h) profound grief, anguish, and collective pain; (I) joblessness, rising unhoused crises; (j) cultural displacement and economic disunity; (k) a falsification of African-centered cultural consciousness (Parham et al., 2016; Wilson, 1993; Wright, 1994).
The outcome of a socio-communal synergy relies upon the embodiment of a humanizing love ethic of transcendent substance and is malleable to any context.
Ngolo, or self-love, is the foundation for cultivating a love extension that is spiritual in nature, revolutionary in practice, and fortified with an armor of humility and dignity (Fu-Kiau, 2003). Our social self as collective-minded individuals are vital to the generative amassing of socio-communal synergy. Through the social self, the collective – the community fully recognizes the shared importance of embodying and expressing principles of love that inform behaviors, actions, and activities that direct and guide community building, maintaining cosmic balance and harmony, and personhood development, i.e., spiritually, morally, ethically, socially, etc. Some of the essential civilization-building principles underscored by the virtue of love have been thoroughly researched and articulated by Chancellor Williams (1987) in The Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race From 4500 B.C. and 2000 A.D.
- Commitment to the nurturing and nourishment of spiritual development for thyself and others.
- Mutual respect, adherence, and understanding of the collective purpose, aims, and interests are immaterial to human differences.
- Invested in genuine, sincere, and humane community and institution building.
- Belief and embodiment of the essence of spirit and Divine order, cosmic interconnectedness, and communalism affirm the vitality of subjective experience and the multiplicity of perspectives.
- Diversity is championed, uniqueness is celebrated, strengths are cultivated and affirmed, and conflict is viewed not as deviancy but as a vantage point for learning, crystallizing knowledge, and expanding synergy within a collective consciousness.
The antidote to lovelessness is not a cookie-cutter or straightforward solution.
It requires reexamining self-definitions and perspectives regarding love within a community-building context. Black survival determines how we, as a microcosm and macrocosm, can reimagine love as an instrument of power. A power that equips Black communities with the ability, strength, and determination, which constitutes an embodied commitment to the enduring process of reclaiming, reascending, and revitalizing the African mind and spirit in accord with cultural knowledge systems, values, and consciousness that aligns with community needs and goals (Wilson, 1993, 1998). The undercurrent to any creative, intellectual, or social act is love for something or someone. This is irrefutable.
Love is the engine. The fuel. The motivator. The primer. The amplifier.
It is arguably the most potent or destructive life force in the cosmology of humanity. The question for utmost reflection is, how do we, as social-self beings, lean into unlearning and relearning reconceptualization of and relationships with love as a synergetic life force?
Revolutionary love or Pan African Zola is a political act—a transnational and transcultural ideal that informs, guides, and directs behavior, organizes consciousness, supports relational dynamics, and facilitates inter- and intra-collaboration and cooperation. Zola is a revolutionary vehicle that restores function to dysfunction, order to disorder, healing to wounding, and thrusts African people to develop political, economic, creative, spiritual, emotional, psychological, and communal liberation and power for children and the unborn (Fu-Kiau, 2003).
It derives from what Dr. Bobby Wright purports as a “Black social theory” to combat the effects of a Eurocentric worldview and Eurocentric intellectual and cultural dominance on the definitional systems, aspirations, and posterity-driven objectives and goals of African people. Dr Bobby Wright (1994) then goes on to explain that:
A social theory determines the destiny of a people by establishing guidelines for life.
It defines their relationship with other living things, it defines values and rituals, methods of education, how enemies are to be dealt with, etc. The ultimate achievement of a Black social theory would be the recreation of Black culture. (p.33) Remarkably, the annals of history provide an illustration of this Pan-African humanism and Zola’s ethic in action.
From the construction of the great Ancient Kemet pyramids in the third and fourth dynasty, to the African naissance in the twenty fifth dynasty, the spread of the traditional African constitution and its attendant fundamental principles and rights that gave birth to social democracy, and Queen Nzinga’s unwavering resistance to Portuguese colonialism and slavery – the thrusts for collective survival and empowerment demonstrated the vitality of self-knowledge, transformational will, and meeting the environmental demands of systemic oppression and conceptual incarceration. Let’s extend our history and actions corresponding to love in 2026 and beyond.
Kyle Toon, MSW MSW, Mental & Creative Liberation LLC
Cultural & Community Health | Liberation Social Work™️ Framework | Promotes Self-Knowledge and African Cultural Wisdom | Community Healing Facilitator for African Diaspora | Ma’at-Centered, Ubuntu-Grounded
References
Ama Mazama. (2003). The Afrocentric paradigm. Africa World.
Fu-Kiau, K. K. B. (2003). Self-healing power and therapy: Old teachings from Africa. Inprint Editions.
hooks, bell. (1999).All About Love: New Visions. Harper Perennial.
Luther, M. (2011).The Trumpet of Conscience. Beacon Press.
Photo by mulugeta wolde on Unsplash
Naʼim Akbar. (2003).Akbar’s papers in African psychology.
Parham, T. A., Adisa Ajamu, White, J. L., Caldwell, R., & Kenya Taylor Parham. (2016). The psychology of Blacks: centering our perspectives in the African consciousness. Routledge.
Williams, C. (1987).Destruction of black civilization: great issues of a race from 4500BC to 2000AD.Third World Press.
Wilson, A. N. (1998).Blueprint for Black Power. Afrikan World Infosystems.
Wilson, A. N. (1993).The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness. Afrikan World Infosystems.
Wright, B. E. (1994).The Psychopathic Racial Personality and Other Essays. THIRD WORLD Press. Baltimore, Maryland, Afrikan World Press.
