Does Pan-Africanism Need Revival? – 54 Africa

Pan-Africanism is not a concept that easily lends itself to definition. It is a journey.

For me, what is important is to understand and underscore the point that this journey has brought us to the point where the talk of the unity of African states is no longer sneered at by cynics or seen as a dream but as something that can happen in our life time.

Pan-Africanism for me is an idea of collective understanding of what binds us as Africans not Tanzanian, Nigerian, Congolese, Sudanese or Egyptian but as Africans with a common bond, how we intend to conduct our affairs in today’s globalized world and how we should work together to address our common problems.

The idea of a common front against exploitation, degradation, abuse, racism, colonial exploitation and various forms of slavery led to the birth of the Pan-African movement as we know it today.

As we struggle to build a Union of African States, it is imperative that we revisit this concept from a political and radical perspective.

After all, Pan-Africanism is partly a response to the way Africa and Africans have been treated within the global world since the Berlin Conference of 1884 which divided Africa into tiny enclaves for the benefit of European monarchs and their hangers on.

Unlike other contending ideologies Pan-Africanism was ‘developed by outstanding African scholars, political scientists, historians and philosophers living in Africa ’.

It was conceived in the womb of Africa. It is a product made in Africa by Africans.

The objectives of Pan-Africanism have changed over time but not the essence.

For instance while the Pan-Africanist Movement of the early years was concerned with anti-racism, anti-colonialism as spearheaded by Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana), Ahmed Sekou Toure (Guinea) and the founding fathers of the Pan African movement; it is now mainly focused on the actual political unification of Africa.

Kwame Nkrumah argued that ‘the independence of Ghana was meaningless unless it was linked up with the total liberation of the African continent.’

For Nkrumah, Ghana’s sovereignty was secondary to the pursuit of the Pan-African dream. So deep was his commitment that all independent states in Africa should work together to create a Union of African States that he was willing to sacrifice Ghana’s pursuit of national sovereignty.

On the eve of Ghana’s independence on 6 March 1957 Nkrumah declared that so deep was Ghana’s ‘faith in African unity that we have declared our preparedness to surrender the sovereignty of Ghana in whole or in part in the interest of a Union of African States and Territories as soon as ever such a union becomes practicable.

Ghana started this process by creating an anti-imperialist front called the Ghana-Guinea-Mali Union of radical African leaders. In his books Kwame Nkrumah further reminded all Africans that imperialism had so thoroughly distorted and disarticulated African social formations that only continental unity could save the region from further deterioration.

In Africa Must Unite (1963) Nkrumah enunciated a clear agenda for the establishment of an African common market to complement the Union of African States and Nkrumah argued:

‘The unity of Africa and the strength it would gather from continental integration of its economic and industrial development, supported by a united policy of non-alignment, could have a most powerful effect for world peace.’

This position was supported by various West African nationalist leaders like Nnamdi Azikiwe (Nigeria), Modibo Keita (Mali) and Sekou Toure (Guinea).

However, this version of Pan-Africanism was not without enemies…

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