By Shaddon Chanda
The Pan-African congresses
Every year African countries commemorate Africa Day or Africa Freedom Day which is broadly in honour of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) established on 25th May 1963 in the Ethiopian capital city Addis Ababa. In the year 2001, Zambia had the rare privilege to host the last OAU Summit held at Mulungushi International Conference Centre chaired by Second Republican President Frederick TJ Chiluba. It was also the last year of President Chiluba as head of state. His successor Levy Mwanswasa was to handover the instruments of chairmanship to South Africa’s Second Black President Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki. It was Mbeki, an intellectual urbane and strong proponent and advocate of Africa Renaissance who became the chairperson of the African Union (AU) which supplanted the aged OAU in 2002. The OAU founder leaders and their successors had done their very best to ensure that the last three countries to attain political freedom in Black Africa namely Zimbabwe (April 1980), Namibia (January 1990) and South Africa (May 1994) got their freedom under majority rule.
The OAU was a product of the ideals of Pan-Africanism championed by great black enthusiastic political warriors such as Edward Wilmot Blyden a preacher and scholar of Liberia, Henry Sylvester Williams, Edward W. Burgardt Dubois, William Marcus Garvey and many others of African descent domiciled in the West Indies and the United States of America. Sylvester Williams, a lawyer and historian from Trinidad was the first person to use the term ‘Pan-Africanism and the first to organize and convene a Pan-African congress in 1900 in London. Dr Williams had extended invitations the men of African descent living in Europe to discuss the evils of white colonialism and white dominance over black peoples, racial prejudice, and the brutal treatment of black people in South Africa (Amate, 1986:34). The conference had to discuss the future of Africa and the international standing of the only three black states existing in the world at that time Haiti, Ethiopia and Liberia. Off the agenda was the pressing question of independence and Burgardt Dubois as a participant took an opportunity to introduce it into the key areas of the discussions and to persuade the congress to to call Britain, the largest colonial power and others with colonies across Africa and the Caribbean. Dubois emphasized on freedom and the right to govern for black people in the colonies of Africa and the West Indies with a deep sense of urgency.
Sylvester Williams died shortly after the first congress he had convened but the work he had pioneered did not go to the grave with him. Dubois took over from where his colleague had left and convened a series of five Pan-African congresses. He meritoriously carried the name ‘Father of Pan-Africanism. He was a practical and competent journalist who used the pen mightily to drive points home that Africa had come of age and needed no white government on the continent. He built up and administered a chain of newspapers which incessantly called for the granting of human rights to all black people treated like lifeless objects by inhuman extremist white people in the Americas, the West Indies and Africa.
Dubois organised congresses in the years 1919 (Paris); 1921 (London); 1923 (two sessions in succession in London and Lisbon); 1927 (New York); and the last one at the end of the Second World War in October 1945 which took place in Manchester, England. Dubois was 73 in 1945 and his vibrancy, radiancy and steam were on the verge of extinction. He remained a mobile spirit behind the influence, effectiveness and unwavering determination to arouse the consciousness of Black Africa to fight racism and colonial rule. The African-Americans and West Indian leaders who had convened the earlier congresses had fallen into the background as aged, ailing and physically weak champions and pacesetters of Pan-Africanism. Time was opportune to hand over the batons to a new breed of young Pan-Africanists.
The Manchester Pan-African Congress had a new team of dynamic and strong young leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana; Namdi Azikiwe, S.L. Akintola and Magnus Williams from Nigeria; Peter Abrahams from South Africa; Wallace Johnson from Sierra Leone; and Jomo Kenyatta (Johnston Kamau) from Kenya. Compared to the first batch of Pan-Africanists who had convened the first four congresses, the 1945 congress organisers were radical and militant in their pronouncements on how the pressing issues facing Africa were to be addressed and redressed (Amate, 1986:36). The Manchester Group resoundily declared that all the peoples of Africa and African descent everywhere should be emancipated forthwith from all diabolical and inhuman forms of inhibiting legislation and influences and be reunited with one another.
In Anglophone Africa emerged Pan-African leaders such as Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Obafemi Awolowo and Benjamin Namdi Azikiwe of Nigeria; Kwame Nkrumah, Joseph Boakye Danquah and Kofi Busia of Ghana; Julius K. Nyerere of Tanganyika (now part of Tanzania with Zanzibar); Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Thomas Joseph Mboya and Peter Mbiyu Koinange from Kenya; Apollo Milton Obote and Paulo Muwanga from Uganda; Joshua Nkomo, Robert Mugabe; Simon Mzenda, Josia Chinamano, Ndabaningi Sithole and Nathan Shamuyarira from Southern Rhodesia now Zimbabwe; Kenneth D. Kaunda, Harry M. Nkumbula, Simon M. Kapwepwe, Sikota Wina, Robinson Nabulyato, Munukayumbwa Sipalo, Nalumino Mundia and Hyden Dinguswayo Banda from Northern Rhodesia now Zambia; Kanyama Chiume, Orton Chirwa, Dunduza Chisiza, Henry Masauko Chipembere Chipembere and Yatuta Chisiza from Malawi; and Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Govan Archibald Mbeki, Anthony Lembede, Robert Sobukwe, and Andrew Mlangeni from South Africa.
Francophone Africa had more black leaders who pandered to the whims, caprices and manipulation of the French and Belgians. It had more of inveterate malleable opportunists and culturally colonised, aristocratic elite leaders such as Felix Houphuet-Boigny of Ivory Coast, Leopold Sedar Senghor (credited with the philosophy of negritude), Joseph Mobutu (who became a personality cult after the Belgians in collusion with him and Joseph Kasavubu brutally assassinated Patrice Lumumba who was a radical Pan-Africanist upon him being elected Prime Minister of Congo-Kinshasa) and Gnassimbe Eyadema who killed killed the radical Pan-Africanist Gilchrist Olympio in Togo. Benard Albert Bongo in Gabon who later discarded Christian names and named himself Omar Bongo after being converted to Islam was another great lackey of the French government in Paris in the late 1969s. So was his son-in-law Denis Sassou-Nguesso of Congo Brazzaville. The most radical Pan-Africanist in Francophone Africa with a fundamentalist disposition was Ahmed Sekou Tourre of Guinea in West Africa who refused to truckle to the dictates of the French when he told them: ” We prefer poverty in liberty to riches in slavery”. The French had succeeded in wooing a good number of presidents in Francophone Africa who became part of the French Community of nations but Sekou Tourre flatly and roundly rejected their overtures to submit his country to the enclave of puppet states of the French.
What was the common vision of the Pan-Africanists?
Pan-Africanists from the outset envisioned a united Africa hermetically sealed with people of African descent in the United States, the Caribbean and other parts of the world. They advocated a discovery for recovery of African black pride, sense of humanity and economic liberation from Western manipulation which bound millions of black people to both physical and mental servitude. The patriarchs of Pan-Africanism wanted an economically, politically, socially and ideologically free Africa with total dependence on its own resources and not perpetually bound to the Portuguese, British, French, Belgians, Germany, Spanish or Italian colonialists. A united Africa was their battle cry.
Rodney (1988:135) asserts that in the centuries before colonial rule, Europe had augmented its economic capacity in leaps and bounds while Africa was almost static. The Europeans had displaced and dispossessed Africa of her human resources and the slave labour dislocated from Africa and shipped in chains to America and the Caribbeans provided hard labour services to the slave owners and the European governments which paid them absolutely nothing. Economies in Europe and Americas prospered and the continent stagnated and fell below zero in the long run. The advent of both slave traders and colonial masters afterwards brutally decimated the peasantry and exploited the black people individually sold as slaves and forcefully taken to Europe. The great social evils perpetuated and perpetrated by the Europeans in collusion left so many vestiges of dehumanization, suppression, exploitation and oppression. The evils are still scars on the beautiful face of Africa which will always remind us of the unpardonable acts of slavery and colonial rule. The divide and rule machinations employed by the colonialists made Africa suffer brands of colonial rule as the continent bled to near extinction with hundreds of people barbarically killed for claiming their right to self-rule under a government of the majorities who were black people. The Conference of Berlin convene by Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck of Germany was a gathering of greedy European colonial powers desperate for turning Africa into a poor continent void of all minerals, timber, and intellectual prowess. The Conference decide which thief among the countries gathered should steal which part of Africa without permission from the indigenous owners of the land. The duality of implacable poles which pitied the colonised and the coloniser later influenced the genesis of a new force of radical Africans on the continent and in the diaspora. The colonialists were never ready to give up the countries they stole and the black people with the arousal of political and social consciousness through the vision of Pan-Africanists who emerged in the late 19th century. The visionary Pan-Africanists began an unstoppable revolt against colonial rule which started with the non-violence approach mistaken for weakness by the colonial powers. Round table discussions for political freedom worked in some African countries which were very poor. The mineral-rich as well as the oil-rich countries such as the Congo-Kinshasa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola, Nigeria, Ghana and many others experienced violence with alarming proportions and in the ultimate the colonialists had to vacate the continent against their will or wish. Victory was on the side of Pan-Africanists and puppets of the whites had to grind their teeth in stunning embarrassment as the forces of oppression always have a divinely-set expiry date.
Are ideals of the Pan-Africanists being honoured on Africa Day?
From 25th May 1963 Africa as a continent has been celebrating its Freedom Day with fanfare highly beautified by defence and security brass bands belting out freedom songs in instrumental lyrics to the temporary amusement and amazement of the people at various stadia and presidential palaces and state houses. The excitement is just ceremonial and for just some hours as political speeches are given in some countries and in countries like Zambia, some citizens and special guests from other countries are honoured for their distinguished services to their country or to Africa. This for over 63 years has been the case and it now looks like a very casual and cheap way of honouring our brave fallen heroes who strove sacrificially for the decolonisation of Africa and total ownership of the wealth of the continent by Africans themselves. Economic freedom which the forefathers and foremothers yearned for is still a pipedream after over a hundred years since Sylvester Williams convened the first Pan African Congress in London in 1900. The West still runs our economies and it is shameful that even the drugs Africans are supposed to manufacture themselves in their sovereign states are donated by the West and the advent of the neophyte extreme white president Donald J. Trump has seen African leaders subjected to agonizing embarrassment even where the art of diplomacy is supposed to be employed, Trump and his lackeys have used vulgarity and uncouth language to depreciate the dignity of the black African personality to the level of wild beasts or brainless apes. The scandals exposed by a foreign donor at the Ministry of Health is just unacceptable and agonizing as a crude embarrassment. We should not shield criminal cartels in any ministry but to be exposed by a benevolent cooperating partner in such a callous manner is disgusting and widely exasperating. Why should we condone such heights of high profile thefts in such key ministries like Health? Are there intensive and extensive audits of drugs supplied to the Ministry of Health? The buck stops at all of us! Pan Africanism must exhort us to be responsible and accountable in the way we discharge our duties and responsibilities. It must speak transparent honesty and integrity as bywords for all the occupants of state offices who must be there to serve the people of Africa and not to steal what belongs to them.
The African Union leaders seem not to be doing much to honour the vision of its founding fathers of its forerunner, the OAU. The unification of Africa into a great continental power to make every African proud and free is still a far-fetched dream darkened by the cloud of greed and treachery perpetrated by ourselves. We always give leverage to Western investors to take control of our economies and pay lip service to promotion of local investments into mining which has been monopolized by Transnational Corporations backed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). We have had great African geniuses running international institutions such as Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iwela, former managing director of the IMF and currently managing director of the World Trade Organization from Nigeria, Obiageli ‘Oby’ Ezekwesili former vice president of the World Bank – Africa Region who also stood as presidential candidate in the 2019 elections of Nigeria an outspoken, blunt-speaking advocate of women’s rights, Nkosana-Dlamimi Zuma former African Union Commissioner and first woman to lead the African Union Secretariat, Chief Emeka Anyouku former Secretary -General of the Commonwealth Group of Nations from Nigeria, Salim Ahmed Salim former Organisation of African Unity (OAU) from Tanzania, late Koffi Attah Annan first black African Secretary -General of the United Nations from Ghana and many more personages who have done wonders for the continent in the continental and regional organisations but our continent still wallows in the muddy waters of underdevelopment with millions barely able to make ends meet as poverty is generating rapidly and rubbing off the little gains nations-states recorded in respect with gross domestic product (GDP) though some countries like Rwanda, Burkina Faso, Uganda and Mauritius seem to be doing very well and shining economically akin to the attainment of Singapore which many countries are looking up to.
The tragedy of Africa is that, unlike the commitment of the founding fathers and pioneers of African unity like Kwame Nkrumah, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Julius Nyerere, Sekou Tourre, Leopold Sedar Senghor, Gilchrist Olympio, Kenneth Kaunda and Milton Obote among few others, the new breed of political party leaders is more of greed and admiration of long-stay in power to amass personal wealth and enrich their children, leaving a trail of grinding poverty in their paths beyond the solution of their successors. Corruption is more, less a formal and normal practice in government circles. They are devoid of good morals and are overshadowed by the egocentric ambition to rule their nations for life and suppress leaders of the opposition with brazen impunity. Misery is what they deliver to their citizens and forcibly turn themselves into personality cults which swallow the pride of political parties. Their names and political parties they lead become synonymous.
Time has come for the African government leaders to rise to the occasion and honour the ideals of the Pan-Africanists of yesteryear and emulate their great works and principles. The nation-states must enact laws which should ban from participating in national elections for life corrupt leaders found guilty by the courts.
Young Zambians in schools must be enlightened on the importance of Africa Freedom Day and what the founding fathers of the OAU had envisioned about a poverty-free Africa with learned people to protect the continent on the pride of Africa as our Motherland fashioned with and blessed by God’s mighty Hands and emphasise the importance of unity which goes counter to ethnic hostility which has left many African nations scarred beyond recognition. The problems besetting Africa are as wide as the whole world but with a great sense of fortitude, resilience and maximum commitment anchored on deep sense of patriotism and continental unity Africa will awaken into a giant it is supposed to be, like a shining city built on a great hill emitting beacons of hope to all people in squalor, poverty, hunger and ill-health.
