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of their fathers and forefathers.

Considerations on theAfrican National Question

K.Prah(Dept. of Sociology VBS)

STATING OBJECTIVESBriefly, the main aim of this paper is to dis-

cuss the issue of the African nationality. Of particularimportance in the exercise hAS been the need to explainthe class character of African nAtional expression. end In

the process ot analysing the subject of the paper conceptslike, Pan-Africanism, nationalism, Populism, Rnd the Ri"htto National Self_Determination have had to be subjected torelevant scrutiny.

In a late edition of the radicill Afric~n journal!lIkwezi", the following statement is attributed to one ofthe greatest men of the 20th century. the great Vietna~e8erevolutionary and leader Ho Chi Minh. !'It is swell-know"fact that the black people are the moet oppressed of human-kind." For centuries ever since the beginnings of capital-ism, the labour of black people haa been an importantsource for surplus value in the global process of capita-list accumulation. Almost everywhere people of Afrlcandescent are outside Africa; they have been taken there asslaves. Today in a large part of Africa, in the south,white fascist minorities in a manner presentlY unique forloit af.<1treatthe whole world, ruthlessly oppress, exp ,

h types in the lendAfricans as inferior humans, sub- umaD •The aura of aeryitude

purely super-problems of

which has hund around Africans for centuries lingers on asechoes and reminders of the sad past. In black cultureand politics, expression has been given to the black humancondition, for the history of the African people is indeeda history of resistance and protest, which was carried intosublime music and bloody warfare. Again today, the possi-

'bility of organized proletarian struggles co-ordinated ona broader African level has opened up perspectives of theAfrican revolution in a fresh and historically more advan-ced way. Students of African history are cheered byBlyden's last sentence in his The Negro in Ancient History(1871). "Time's noblest offspring is the last". Indeed,the most violent and the most benign expressions, war andmusic, have been used by blacks to register their records.With respect to "Africans in Diaspora", it is interestingto remember that in all their exteriorization of spiritualand physical anguish attendant on slavery in the form ofdeeply moving music, there was solace in the millenarian ismwhich saw "judgement day" and the destruction of "Babylon"rOund the corner; on which day the tribulations and woesof black people will end. This was the use to whichchristian mythology was put. It was set into music as aform of political protest. Black protest and nationalism,also developed a more direct political form, under theaegis of Pan-Africanist ideas. But what are the consti-tUent elements of these concepts of African nationhood?NATIONALISM AND THE RIGHT OF NATIONS TO SELF-DETERMINATION

Nationalisml has been one of the difficultPOlitiCO-SOCiological concepts to define. To some it is astate of mind, a mere ideological orientation within whichthe idea is held that ones ultimate loyalty a~d socialcommitment lies with the nation-state which is his or hernative land ancestral t d' ,

t ra ~tkons, customs and people.Defined in such lOOse terms ~t 't ~ represents a

structural phenomenon with all the attendant

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subjectvism and termi.nological discrepancies. When theconcept is placed within a historical framework, it tendsto be less elusive, it is more materially grounded, andyields more cognitive gold. In the sense that it is gene-rally understood contemporarily, it is a modern phenomenondating from the late 18th century in Western Europe andNorth America. It is not however so easily understood thatit arose at a specific stage of socio-economic development,and represented the super-structural exteriorization ofmaterial substructural conditions. The nation-state whichwas its existential crucible was essentially the post-feudal state constituted structurally for the expansion ofcapitalism and its dominant class, the bourgeoise. Theemergence of the nation-state shifted the point of focusof political allegiances. Before the era of nationalismin the West political allegiances often focussed on thesecularized remains of the Holy Roman Empire, theChristian world community; and specifically on the feudalpotentates, principalities, and sometimes religioUS sects.Thus in a sense ironically the specific parochialism ofthe feudal period was replaced by yet another form ofparochialism whose frame of reference was more extended interms of its ethnographic prerequisites. It would behowever quite mistaken to overemphasize its ethnic speci-fications at the expense of its fundamental class charac-ter. The National movements which swept Western Europebetween 1789 and 1871 represented in fact the ascendancy of

f the older domi-the bourgeois classes, and the collapse 0nant classes i.e. the feudalist groups. The ideology ofnationalism, and its political expression, the emergenceof nation-states was nothing more, and nothing less, than

d't'ona for capita-the development of more favourable con 1 1,It ge As Leninl~st development at its pre_monopo y a a •.eriod of the f1nalexplained: "Throughout the world, the p.. bas been linked upv~ctory of capitalism over feuda11sm

om lete victory ofwith national movements. For the c P

commodity production, the bourgeoise must capture the homemarket, and there must be politically united territorieswhose population speak a single language, with all obsta-cles to the development of that language and to its conso-lidation in literature eliminated. Therein is the econo-mic foundation of national movements. ~herefore, the ten-dency of every national movement is towards the formationof national states under which these requirements ofmodern capitalism are best satisfied. The most profoundeconomic factors drive towards this goal, and, therefore,for the whole of Western Europe, nay, for the entire civi-lized world, the national state is typical and normal forthe capitalist period.,,2

In the effort towards creating a bourgeois nation-state generally-in both Europe and outside Europe, all thehistorically post-feudal classes are active in these move-ments, although in the long run, their interests in thepolitical economy which is being created greatly vary.Thus the proletarian and capitalist classes unite to over-throw feudalism and establish the nation-state, but thenation-state itself becomes the structure within which therule and domination of capital over labour is firmly consO-lidated. The ideological basis of these movements both inthe past and near present, have be~n esaentially populiat.

The concept of the Rights of Nations to Self-determination, like several other modernist democraticconcepts of today, generally have their genesis in theperiod of the European Enlightenment in the 18th century,and the French Revolution in particular. In his statementon the "Declaration du droit des gens" submitted in April1795, the Abbe Gregoire had expatiated on this neo-Rousseauian doct . H. r1ne. e argued that every people has ther1ght to organize 0 h "" r c ange 1ts government according to1ts own inclinat"10ns. The American Revolution revindica-ted this stand-~oi t d .

r n an aga1n it received reiterationduring the strug 1g es for Independence in Ibero-Aaerica.

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In the early period of its use, the idea enjoyed a deepen-ing effect from the philosophical ideas of such variedpre-Marxian thinkers as Kant, Fichte, Herder andSchleiermacher. It became one of the central peace aimsof the 1st World War, and President Woodrow Wilson in astatement to the U. S. Senate on January 22, 1917 submittedthat "no nation should extend its polity over any othernation or people, but that every people should be left freeto determine its own polity." This principle was spe1t inmore historically specific elaboration in his "FourteenPoints" on January 8, 1918. The realities of real-politikhave however demonstrated that this was empty idealisticrhetoric which neither victors nor vanquished have stuckto. Imperialist rivalry, the contention for colonies, neo-colonies, and spheres of influence have featured more prac-tically in international relations, than the sanctimoniousverbiage of Woodrow Wilson. The principle featured as acornerstone of the Covenant of the League of Nations, andsupsequently in the Atlantic Charter (August 14, 1941), theUnited Nations, (January 1, 1942) and even the YaltaAgreement (1945). In the post-1945 era, the main arena ofdebate on this issue has been on the floor of the worldbody where the depth of the meaning of the concept hascome to encompaas on the one hand, the more classical pers-pective, the right of self_determination in the sense ofthe right of a state to choose its own politico-economicand social modus vivendi, and on the other, meaning andemphasizing more the right of a people to constituteitself into a state or otherwise freely to determine theform of its association with an existing state or states.No group of analysts and observers have pursued discuss tonand debate on this question with as much vigour and thoroU-ghness as the Marxists. Elaborating strictures againstKarl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin forceful17 stated

t t r sn the .eaning ofTery correctly that "if we wan 0 gar. b j gling with legalself-determination of nat10ns, not y ug

definitions, or 'inventing' abstract definitions, but byexamining ttle historico-economic conditions of the natio-nal movements, we must inevitably reach the conclusionthat the self-determination of nations means the politicalseparation of these nations from alien national bodies, andthe formation of an independent national state.,,3 In thetheses of the 2nd CominternCongress (1920) it was, amongother things, stated that "real national freedom and unitycan be achieved by the p~oletariat only through revolu-tionary struggle and by the Overthrow of the bourgeoisie".Stalin's brief treatment of the subject "Nationalism out-side Europe,,4 summarized precisely the essence of theseideas.

In Africa, because capitalist colonialism wasimposed by whites .throughout the continent, nationalistreaction albeit populist has been anti-white colonialist.Historical conditions have made it nothing else. To mostAfricans colonial oppression simply means the nationaloppression of African people by Whites.

HOdgkin's5 argument that often nationalist propa-ganda in Africa "is liable to be emotional1.y highly charged,relying on rhetoric rather than argument" is very true butmass nationalist pOlitics in Africa because of the basica~morally justified character of its demands has needed oftenonly slogans to make sense to masses whose rejection ofcolonialism and European oppression is so well and easilyunderstood, that arguementation on such basic issues be-comes rather superfluous. That is the catch about choruseslike: "You Europeans are nothing but rObbers, though youpretend you Came to lead us. Go away, go away, youEuropeans, the years that are past have been more thanenough for US

Il•6 A mOre stylized rendering of the same

idea can be read in the Mau Mau secret society oath of themid 20th century.

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I speak the truth and now before GodAnd before this movementThe movement of UnityThe Unity which is put to the testThe Unity that is mocked with the name of "Mau Mau"That I shall go forward to fight for the land,The lands of Kirinyaga that we cultivatedThe lands which were taken by the Europeans.And if I fail to do thisMay this oath kill me,May this seven kill me,May this meat kill me.7

Under conditions of colonialism in the past andsettler-colonialism in the present, these expressions arethe substance of reality for large sections of the exploi-ted African classes, although obviously pre-Marxist in anideological developmental sense, the millernarianism andmessianism of groups like the "Mau Mau", the Kimbanguisteof the Congo, and others represented the politico-religious protest of deprived classes with relatively lowclass consciousness.

PAN-AFRICANISMThe prefix pan, which preceeds Africanis. in the

concept of Pan_Africanism derives from the Greek word ~an(all). Pan movements have historically not been confinedto Africa, and this is nO surprise, for the wish and recQg-nit ion of identity in the broad basis of culture hil!ltor7and ethnicity, transcending contemporary state boundaries,are sentiments which have in different ways and to diffe-rent degrees, affected most peoples on this globe atdifferent historical periods. The Slavs have articulatedPan-Slavic viewS, which originated at the beginning of the19th century and envisaged a union of the Slavic lan;uagespeaking peoples. It started as A movement among intel-lectuals, scholars, poets etc., under the influence and in

151

the wake of the French Revolution. In 19th centuryRussia, Pan-Slavic ideas crystallized into Slavophilism asOpposed to Westernism. In the Moslem world, Pan-Islamismorginally underlied the efforts of Muslim states in the19th century to resuscitate Muslim power and achieveMoslem unity. These notions have lingered on into the20th century, with contemporary Neo-Pan-Islamism. Pan-Germanism has been another species in this genus. Its aimhas broadly been a union of all Germanic people. In theWestern hemisphere, Pan-views exist particularly in LatinA.erican where the common Latin culture has been a fertile

Habsburg monarchy intounder democratic Habsburg

ground for the breeding of such sentiments. Not all thesevarieties of Pan-ism have had the same politico-ideological focus. Some have in general term~ representedessentially right-wing view while others have carried aleftist orientation, depending on the historical specificsof the societies and peoples involved, so that Japanese"iews of the "Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere" and the PanGer..nic theories of Nordic-Aryanism, and the ideas whichlay at the bottom of the Hitlerian contention for Germanic"Lebensraum", were based on purely extreme right-wingracialist views. Other less openly fascistic notionswhich have bad clearly right-wing expansionist and imperia-list inclined intentions have been such views as the Pan-A.ericanist ideas enshrined in the Monroe Doctrine, andPan-Slavic views under Tsarist Russian leadership; thislatter indeed became a vehicle of Russian domination overthe Slavs. However even within the same broad frameworkof Pan-Slavism a more "" ", progressLve verSLon represent LngPOPUlar, generally leftist, aspirations have also beenhistorically prese t Th "n. e fLrst Pan-Slavic congress ofthe Slavic national"t" "

L Les Of the Habsburg monarchy held LnJune 1848 in Pra dgue un er the leadership of the Czech

patriot Frantisek Palacky highlighted demands of AustrianSlavs for the transformation of thea tederation of equal peoples

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rule. The same can be said for Pan-Africanism which tilltoday has largely represented demands of African peoplein and out of Africa for unity, freedom, and self-determination. Historically for Africa and people ofAfrican descent it has for most of its life span been arallying point for African resurgence and unity, a popularreference category in the aspirations of black people.However, today it is clear that the idea of African unityas understood by Pan-Africanists has been largely a popu-list apology of the African Revolution and class struggle.

Generally whatever credit and emphasis is placedon the contribution of others before the 20th century, itis agreed that the dominant figure of Pan-Africanist thoughtthis century is W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois' impact has beenperhaps only equalled socially, although not intellectuallyby Marcus Aurelius Garvey, who has been variously called."The Negro Moses", "the black Zionist". These two figuresstood at opposite poles in the ideological spectrum.Garve;y was a blackist who divulged: "I believe in a pureblack race just as all self-respecting whites believe ina pure white race. as far as that can bell•

S On anotheroccasion he said: "We were the first Fascists. We haddisciplined men, women and children in training for theliberation of Africa. The black masses saw that in thisextreme nationalism lay their only hope, and readily sup-ported it. Mussolini copied fascism from me, but thenegro reactionaries sabotaged itfl•9 Garvey collaboratedwith the Ku Klux Klan and other white right-wing extremists.Du Bois on the other hand was a highly sophisticatedleft-wing scholar.

In a preface to the Jubilee edition of his"Souls of Black Folk" Du Bois noted that: "As 1" re-readthese messages of more than half a century ago. ! sense twomatters which are not so much omission on my part as indi-cations of what I then did not know or did not realize:

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one is the influence of Freud and his co-workers in theirstudy of psychology; the other is the tremendous impact onthe modern world of Karl Marx ••• My college trainingdid not altogether omit Karl Marx. He was mentioned atHarvard and taken account in Berlin. It was not omissionbut lack of proper emphasis or comprehension among myteachers of the revolution of thought and action whichMarx meant I still think today as yesterday thatthe colour line is a great problem of this century. ButtOday I see more clearly than yesterday that at the backof the problem of race and colour, lies a greater problemwhich both obscures and implements it; and that is thefact that so many civilized people are willing to live incomfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignoranceand disease of the majority of their following; that tomaintain this privilege men have waged war until todayWar tends to become universal and continuous and theeXCUse for this war continues largely to be colour andrace. 1110

Pan-Africanism originated not in Africa, but theNew World. It was precisely those Africans, taken fromtheir homeland into slavery and servitude in the Americasand the Caribbean who articulated their aspirations forAfrica and llAfricaness" into what later became known aspan-Africanism. The picture was caught in the poetry ofthe black American writer Claude MCkay's often quotedpoem "Outcast":

"For the dim regions whence my fathers cameMy spirit, bondaged by the bOdy, longs.Words felt, but neVer heard, my lips would frame;My soul would sing forgotten jungle songs.I would go back to darkness and to peace.But the great western world holds me ~n... fee,And I may never hope for full releaseWhile to its. alien gods I bend illY

" knee.

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Something in me is lost, forever lost,Some vital thing has gone out of my heart,And I must walk the way of life a ghostAmong the sons of earth, a thing apartFor I was born, far from my native clime,Under the white man's menace, out of time.1l11

Evidence of the attitude of black slaves inAmerica to Africa can be gleaned from the references andsentiments expressed in their songs (the spirituals). In-spired closely by the metaphor of the old testament, theslaves in America compared themselves to the Israelitesin Egyptian bondage. In the structure of thi~ lyricalimagery "Heaven", "Jerusalem", and "Zion" representedAfrica and "River Jordan" the wide Atlantic. "Ethiopia II

was part of this vocabulary, and till today the Rastafa-rians of Jamaica, latter day milternarians and messianistsregard the Negus as their messiah and Ethiopia theirValhalla. During the early nineteenth century, a Frenchwriter observed that in parts of the New World, (Haiti inparticular) among blacks the myth persisted that the soulsof black folk went to Africa after death in America.

12

Obviously one factor which enhanced the develop-ment of Pan_Africanist notions in the New World was thathere Africans from different parts were thrown togetherunder conditions of extreme degradation and suffering •The commoness of their history, lot, and destiny was animmediate reality .to perceive. Thus although they werecut off from their various and specific ethnic origins andthe cultural references this provided. their losS was re-placed by a new consciousness which recognized and"embraced the totality of African humanitytl. Stuckey13indicates that the wish for independent and autonomousdevelopment of blacks in the New World is probably as oldas the 1600s, however it may have matured into clear ideo-logical form about the mid-19th century. Even then in some

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..

parts of the New World militant proto-black-nationalism wasdefinitely pre-mid 19th century. With respect to theGUianas, Anton de Kom's ItWij Slaven van Surinamfl is parti-cularly illuminating.

~ tDenmark Vesey's leader of the 1822 Charles onslave conspirary had been an activist of a black separa-tist church movement who had been greatly inspired by theHaitian revolution. In North-East Brazil, a variety ofreligious cults became the protective setting for blackconsciousness.l5 Robert Alexander Young's ItEthiopianManifestoll (1829), David Walker's I1Appeal (1830)11, H. H.Garnet's "Address to the slaves" (1843), and MartinDelany's "the Political Destiny of the Colored Racell appa-rently went some way in laying the ideological foundationsot Black nationalism in the U. 8.16

In so far as the political goals of Black nation-alism in the U.S. and Africa are concerned, one importantpoint has to be borne in mind. Whereas in America blacknationalism is the political expression of a minoritynationality for equality and self-determination, in Africanationalism has been the expression of the majority natio-nality for freedom, independence and self-determination inthe land of their forefathers. However, there is a funda-mental and persistent notion among people of African des-cent, in and out of Africa, this is the belief that they

•all belong to the African nation.

IDEAS IN PRACTICE

As Padmore17 points out the concept of Pan-Africanism arose out of the feeling of brotherhood whichexists between Africans and people of African descent. Itwa$ apparently thrown into currency by the Trinidadian1a~er R. Sylvester-Williams. He convened the first Pan-African Conference in tondon in 1900 to which he invitedDu Bois among others, this conference addressed itself tothe black huaan Condition and as t 18

&glUl. sadly admits, at

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that time, over three-quarters of a century ago they wereprotesting against the treatment of Africans in SouthAfrica and Rhodesia smarting under the social torture ofwhite racist chauvinism maintained in support of deve1op-ingcapita1ism. Three years after this congress Du Boisbroke with the more pacifist ideas of Booker T. Washington.The second congress took place in Paris (1919) under DuBois' leadership. The third and fourth congresses wereheld in 1921 and 1923, and the fifth which was held inNew York took place in 1927. Between the 5th and 6thcongresses, the ideas of figures like C. L. R. James,George Padmore and Peter Milliard became influential inPan-Africanist circles. The 6th congress was held inManchester (1945). By now the youthful African elementhad become predominant. It boasted members as R. G.Armattoe, Peter Abrahams, Chief S. L. Akinto1a, JomoKenyatta, Chief H. I. Davies, Joe Appiah, J. C. de GraftJOhnson, Otto Makonnen, Magnus Williams, E. J. Du Plan,Dr. K. K. Taylor, Kwame Nkrumah, C. L. R. James, GeorgePadmore and of course the "grand old man" "father of Pan..Africanism," W. E. B. Du Bois.

The West African National Secretariat, (organi-zed by Nkurumah in 194.5) at its conference in August 1946launched the idea of a West African Federation, as a steptowards a United States of Africa. Dr. N. Azikiwe theolder veteran African nationalist endorsed these ideas

"1" 19which he had been known to support 1n ear 1er years.Between the late 40s and 1960 many of these young militant$got back to Africa and started translating their ideas inpractise. Its first SUCCeSS story was Ghana's independencein 1957. With this foothold secured, the first conferenceof Independent African States was held in Accra in 1958.A second such conference was held in Addis Ababa in 1960.The All African Peoples Conference of political parties andmovements in Africa also took place in Accra, 1958. Sub-sequently follow-ups took place in Tunis (1960) and

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Cairo (1961). At its meeting, which drew people likePatrice Lumumba, Felix Moumie, representatives of ANC(South Africa), nationalists from Northern Rhodesia,Southern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Kenya, Tanzania, etc., itadopted a resolution in support of the ultimate aim of aUnion of free African States. Between the 60s and the 70sthese ideas have hobbled along and even the only existingpolitical organization which in the late 50s - early 60sbaaed itself on Pan-Africanist principles, the Pan-African Congress of South Africa, in recent years is drif-ting slowly from this position to a more thorough-goingMarxist viewpoint.

In East Africa during the last quarter century,Jomo Kenyatta has been the most prominent Pan-Africanist.He had been one of the leaders of the Pan-AfricanistCongress in Manchester (1945). His historical status in away makes him a lonely figure in so far as Pan-Africanisttraditions in East Africa are concerned. James Gichuru theformer president of the Kenya African Union argues thatPan-Africanism appeared in East Africa as an open politicalforce between 1955 and 1960. Tom Mboya's remarks suggestthe late 50's as a crucial watershed in the development ofideas of African unity20. Apparently Juliua Nyerere caughtup with these ideas also in the mid_50's.2l However alread1in 1945 the coneept of an all-embracing East Afriean move-ment was being discussed. In 1953, Ugandan nationalistssent telegrammes to Nehru, Fenner Brockway, Nkrumah andothers proposing an All Africa government.22

In Atrica, early nationalist thought emerged inthe 1850s and 60s. The resettlement of former slaves inSierra Leone and Liberia was not inspired or instigated by

Africans. But once it had happened, it brought in its wakea cross-fertilization of ideas between the former slavesand the emerging westernized African classes on the Westcoast. The early leading adVocates of Black natiQnalistideas were prObably Africanus Horton and Edward Blyden.

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They were followed closely both historically and intellec-tually by other bourgeois African nationalists likeJ. M. Sarbah Jr., Attoh-Ahuma, J. Casely-Hayford, HolyJohnson to mention a few of the better known ones. Someof them actively sought to create political organisationswith a wide African geographical and historical base, andin their writings the nationalist unitary Afr'ican senti-ment was never overlooked.

Booth, the Baptist missionary who came to Nyasaland in1892 became close to Nyasaland's first African nationalist,John Chilem~e. In 1894, at Blantyre, a politico-neligiousgrouping, the African Christian Union was formed under theauspices of Chilembwe, Booth and others. Among otherthings, their stated desire was "to unite together in thename of Jesus Christ such persons as desire to see fulljustice done to the African race and are resolved to worktowards that day when African people shall become anAfrican Christian nation"; it also desired "to pursuesteadily and unswervingly the policy of 'Africa for theAfricansl,,23 Further down south in Natal the first SouthAfrican black medical doctor, N. Yembula and others likeSolomon Kumalo welcomed the ideas of the Christian Union.Already in the 1970's isolated groups of Africans hadstarted organizing their own church communities in theface of racism of the whites in the two Boer Republics,Transvaal and Orange Vrystaat. As Legum points out, theemphasis was on "the African to write and work for his ownredemption, political, economic and spiritual".24 Apparen-tly Booth brought together in Natal about 120 educatedAfricans who in the end rejected his proposals on thegrounds that they could not trust any whiteman with aject like that. "No trust or reliance at all would beplaced in any representative of the blood-stained whitemanwho had killed scores of thousands of Zulus and theirHatebele relationsll•

25 Today these feelings among Africans

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have been reinforced even further by apartheid in Rhodesiaand South Africa. So powerful were nationalist ideas fromthe U. S. during the early part of this century, that itis interesting to observe26 that among the about 20 SouthAfrican students who went to America at about that period,P. K. Isaka Seme (one of the founding members of the ANC _1'12) Sol Plaatjie, J. L. Dube, D. D. T. Jabavu and A. B.Xuma were all prominent in South African early nationalisthistory. Later others from elsewhere in Africa likeHastings Banda, P. M. Koinange and N. Azikiwe caught thenationalist fever in the U. S. A.

NATIONALISM AS A POPULIST FORM

In 20th century Africa, nationalism has been verymuch a populist ideological form. Its thrust has been aanti-colonial (or anti-settler-colonial) in an overt way.The state structures it has given birth to have been alleither laissez faire capitalist or state capitalist, or amixture of the two dominant varieties of capitalism. Insome instances state capitalism has been catchily dubbedsocialism or African socialism. But any real analysis ofthese state structures reveals their basic bourgeoischaracter. Above all these nationalist independencemovements have said and done all "in the name of thepeople". It is interesting to note that populism where andwhenever it has historically reared its head, has vocali-zed and idealized the interests of "the people". It hasthus tended to attract popular sentiment. However inva-riably no structurization is accorded the concept of "thepeople"; no precise definition of the content of "thePeo 1 II ••

P e . 1.Sg1.ven. Rather socio-economic differentiationamong "the peoplett . 01.savo1.ded or under-emphasized, althoughsuperficially, slogans in favour of the common-man are fan-fared far and wide. Populist nationalism thuB has beenadaptable both t . ho rJ.g t and left-wing radicalism andrhetoric. In tho

1.ssort of populist language "the African

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people" becomes a holistic unit within which both tycoonsand paupers are supposed to have a common destiny. Thisabsence of a clear ideological structure dialecticallydelimits its weaknesses and strength depending of courseon the specific historical conditions within which it isespoused and advocated. Under those conditions where theexpulsion of a colonial master or white settler racism isthe main item on the agenda, populist nationalism appearsas a progressive force unifying all Africans against theiroppressors. With the establishment of African bourgeois-democracy, the internal class contradictions among thevarious African classes which supported the independencemovement, becomes more open and antagonistic. Under suchlatter conditions populism becomes reactionary and becomesan ideological weapon of mystification, and oppression inthe hands of bourgeois and petty bourgeois interests. Be-cause of its vague ideological orientation, populistnationalism tends to be philosophicallY highly syncretic.'Witness Nkrumah in the early years of the Independencestruggle in Ghana. "Today I am a non_denominationalchristian and a Marxist socialist and I have not found anycontradiction between the two.,,27 In the same vein popu-list nationalism often attempts to synthesize traditionaland modern values. These tendencies are present in theideas of Julius Nyerere on African socialism and Ujamaa,Sekou Toure on "Communaucratique", Jomo Kenyatta'sAfrican socialism, Numeiry's Arab socialism, Kenneth Kaundaon "Humanism", Leopold Senghor on "Negritude" and MobutuSese Seko on "Authencite" etc. In all these instances thephilosophical character of their substantive ideas areeclectic "radical often in ideals but fundamentallyreformist in methods". These theories in practice super-vise neocolonial states for the expansion of capitalism.In this effort sometimes a superficial but often loud anti-imperialist position is adopted, and social contradictionsare represented as emanating from outside. The links

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between imperialism and internal reaction are not esta-blished. As I have elsewhere argued, contemporarily,populist nationalism often takes up a so-called Marxist or

. 28 T . t . G' B. aoMarxist-Lenin~st garb. he exper2men s ~n U2nea- 1SS ,Mozambique and Angola fall under this category. It shouldbe added that actually Leninism represents both histori-cally and philosophically a rejection of populism, as canbe seen in Lenin's polemics against the Narodniki.

RECENT UNITARY EFFORTS

Most of the recent conceptions of Unitary AfricanOrganizations have had buried deep in them all the contra-dictions inherent in the international capitalist order.As such their successes and failures have actually beenreflective of trends in the international capitalist sys-tem, and to a steadily increasing degree the internationalfortunes and misfortunes of the Super-powers in theirtussles for spheres of influence and control.

The most important of these organizations of thelast two decades is the Organization of African Unity (OAU~This body created originally On May 25, 1963, to enhancethe aim of African unity has displayed purpose and strengthonly in so far as the neocolonial masters of Africa wouldpermit. Compounding this problem has been the pettybourgeois chauvinism of the African ruling classes. Allthis has gone a long way into making this body a showgroundand debating club for African Heads of State. In a sensethe OAU historically merged two closely preceeding histo-ries in tontinental African politics. These were the poli-tical expressions of the Monrovia and Casablanca grOupings~The former tended to group the conservative governmentswhich leaned heaVily on the West, the latter were militantprogressist African states. champions of'"non-alignment"

u ~.and pos~t:Lveneutrality."

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In a sense the Casablanca group had an earlierprogenitor dating from May, 1959, this was the Ghana-Gui M l' u' 30 T'nea- a 1 n1on. h1s was a radical populist group ofsub-Saharan African states. Its extreme opposite in termsof ideological colouring was the African and MalagasyCommon Organization (OCAM) created in December, 1960.Other similar mainly economically oriented organizationsincorporating a number of African states are the customsand Economic Union of Central Africa (UDEAC) founded onthe 8th. December, 1964; the defunct East African Community(EAC) established on the 6th of June 1967, out of theolder (1917) colonial British East African Customs Union:the African Development Bank (September 10, 1964); and theU. N. Economic Commission for Africa. Recently, a neweconomic union of West African States (ECOWAS) has beencreated.

Most of these structures of unity created withinthe last two decades have been rather short-lived, parti-cularly the political groupings. The most dramatic andtraumatic of these have probably been the collapse of theMali-Senegal Federation, and the abortive idea of an EastAfrican Federation.

OLD AND NEW PERSPECTIVES

If the criterium of language is used as a yard-stick for isolating ethnicities, there are then hundredsof ethnicities in Africa. In many cases, the structurallikeness and proximity of these languages and cultures,are so close that, it serves little purpose to differen-tiate them as separate groupings. They are rather sub-units of larger nationalitiesJand there are about 54 oddcountries accommodating this profusion of nationalitiesand subnationalities. Within each country invariablY,there a few majority nationalities, with a host of mino-rities sharing a given state. There is no instance inwhich only one nationality inhabits a given country.

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Furthermore, in all African countries, existing stateborders cut through the historico-geographical locationsof hundreds of these nationalities, for these borders weredemarcated by the colonial powers in the 19th centurywithout any consideration for the aspirations and wishesof the African people. Today, in many ways they havebecome sources of tension and conflict among African'countries. Since most of Africa is still seriously neo-colonial, a lot of the tensions between African countriesare actually inherited by proxy from the various imperia-list powers. As such, they represent more the effects ofimperialist rivalry, than internally generated conflicts.When and where inter-ethnic conflicts exist, they areoften hyper-exacerbated by imperialist rivalry and contestfor spheres of inf1uence.32 Although too often the realhorizontal class character of these conflicts are buriedunder vertical and ethnically oriented analysis commonamong idealists. In recent decades the oppression ofvarious nationalities in multi-national African states hasled to armed struggle. In the Southern Sudan, Arab oppre-ssion from the north provoked a cruel war which partialautonomy in the south has now quietened. In Eritrea,Ethiopian oppression has been met with a vigorous national.war of liberation by the Eritreans. It is to be expectedthat as time goes on, and capitalist development expandsin Africa, the need for wider markets for the free andspeedy development of capitalism will tend to stimulatebourgeois African inspired moves towards larger unities,the ECOWAS is a case in point.

Much as such trends will facilitate the welcomemovement of Africans in Africa, this is in fact, also theaim of capital at that stage of development when itsfurther growth depends on wider markets and sources ofproduction. As has been explained: "Developing capitalismknows two historical tendencies in the national question.The first is the awakening of national life and national

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movements, the struggle against all national oppression,and the creation of nation-states. The second is thedevelopment and growing frequency of international inter-course in every form, the breakdown of national barriers,the creation of the international unity of capital,ofeconomic life in general, of politics, science, etc. Bothtendencies are a universal law of capitalism. The formerpredominates in the beginning of its development, thelatter characterises a mature capitalism movine towardsits transformation into socialist society.,,34

In the development of larger unities on theAfrican continent, the African bourgeoisie would placenational demands and issues in the forefront. On the otherhand, the African masses specifically the proletariat andpeasantry, as their class consciousness deepens would placethe class struggle above narrow national demands. In thehistorical phase of transition from feudalism to capital-ism, expectedly the African proletarian and peasant mnssessupported and continue to support national demands inunison with the propertied classes. However in order toachieve its strategic goal of "a world of unity betweenthe working people of all n~tiona, a world in which thereis no place for any privileges or for the oppression ofman by manll35 the African labouring classes cannot fromthe standpoint of their own strategic interests supportthe permanence and entrenchment of petty bourgeois nation-alism within the context of existing state structures.Its support would tend to be thrown behind the removal ofexisting national divisions and distinctions. In otherwords it would tend to support those moves aimed atbringing nationalities together; towards the fusion andmerger of African nationalities; towards African unitybased on principles of free unification. This freedomto unite naturally has meaning only if the right ofseccession is also implied. For as Lenin explained,"without freedom to secede, unification cannot be called

16.5

free.tt35 From the viewpoint of the African peasant andworker masses, in Africa today, Fanon's description of thecolonial world is still too real : "the town belonging tothe colonized people, or at least the native town, theNegro village, the medina, the reservation, is a place ofill fame, peopled by men of evil repute. They are bornthere, it matters little where or, nor how. It is a worldwithout spaciousness; men live there on top of each other,

36and their huts are built one on top of the other.tt

In all parts of Africa, without exception onefinds that the pattern of capitalist penetration cutsa~ross borders and nationalities. For this reason oftenthe classes which have developed across adjacent borderareas are extremely similar in both national and classterms. The possibility of organizing them also on similarrevolutionary lines and around similar agrarian programmesis very real, for it is the agrarian revolution under pro-letarian leadership which will draw the majority of Africanpeople into the revolution of the 20th century. The deve-lopment of productive forces in Africa depends on theelimination of imperialism. But imperialism itself inpractice is among other things "balkanizationH; the frac-tionalization of a unit. It precisely truncates unifieddevelopment, stifles the holistic and total development ofproductive forces.

Unity of much deeper and significant meaning,away from and beyond the ludicruous ineffectiveness of theOAU will be surpassed at the stage in African history whenproletarian parties, working in close concert and coopera-tion both organisatorically and practically, develop theclass strUggle for socialism and proletarian unity. Indeedone can only conclude that it is only within the contextof the struggle for proletarian unity in Africa that mean-:i.ngfulAfrican U • t .n1 y can be ach1eved. That is the strugglefor socialism in Af .r1ca, the African Revolution which isonly part of the International Revolution. 1

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F 0 0 T NOT E S

IV" "d "ar1o~s 1 eal1st but scholarly interpretations of thesub~ect ~rominentlY include the following: ~.H. Carr,Nat:ona11sm and After, London, 1945. A. CobbanNat10nal Self-Determination, Chicago, 1947. 'K. Deutsch, Nationalism and Social CommunicationCambridge-Mass., 1953. 'J. S. Coleman, Nationalism in Tropical Africa.American Political Science Review, June 1954R. Emerson, From Empire to Nation, Cambridge, Mass.1960. 'C.J.H. Hayes, Essays on Nationalis~, New York, 1926

Elie Kedourie, Nationalism, New york, 1961

2V. I. Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determinatio~Collected Works, Vol. 20

3V• I. Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-DeterminatioACollected Works, Vol. 20

4J• Stalin, Nationalism outside Euro~. In Foundationsof Leninism 1924. Reprinted in Problems of Leninism,Moscow, 1945.

5T• Hodgkin, Nationalism in Colonial Afri~a, London1956, page 169.

6Chorus of Kenya African Union "hymn" quoted in T.Hodgkin, Ibid, page 169.

7J• M. Kariuki, The "Mau Mau" Oath from "Mau MaullDetainee, 1963, page 26. Quoted here fromE. Kedourie, Nationalism in Asia and Afric~, London1970, page 463.

8M• Garvey, Philoso~hY and Opinions. Vol. 2, page 37.

9See G. Padmore, Pan_Africanism or communism, New York1972, page 75.

lOW. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of BlaCk Folk, New York1953, (preface).--

llClaude McKay, outcast, Quoted here from Colin Legum,Pan Africanism, New york, 1965, page 15.

121• Geiss, The Pan-African Movement, Metheun, 1974page 28.

13S• Stuckey, The Ideological Origins of Black Nationalism,Boston, 1972, page 2. In the Carribean and SouthAmerica as opposed to the U. S., blacks managed tomaintain a purer African cultural world. G. Shepperson,"Notes on Negro American influences on the Emergence ofAfrican Nationalism." Journal of African History,Vol. I No. 2 pp. 299-312.

14See R. S. Starobin, Denmark Vesey, Englewood Cliffs,1970.

15Till today many of these cults exist, and Bahia infacthas the most "authentic" African cultural lore in thewhole of the New World.

16See S. Stuckey, The Ideological Origins of Black Nation-~, Boston, 1972. See also H. Lynch, Pan-NegroismIn The New World before 1862. In O. E. Uya, (ed)Black Brotherhood, Lexington, 1971. and H. Aptheker,Conserveness of Negro Nationality to 1900. In TowardNegro Freedom. New York, 1956.

l?G. Padmore, Pan-Africanism or Communism, page 95

l8c• Legum, Pan-Africanism, London, page 31

19C• Legum, ~. Page 3320

J. S. Nye, Pan-Africanism and East African Integration,Cambridge-Mass., 1966, page 31.

2lJ• S. Nye, Ibid.

22J• S. Nye, ~. page 9623See C. Legum, Op'cit., page 22

24,!lli. page 23

25Ibid. page 23

26Ibid• page 27

168

27 K. Nkrumah, Autobiography, London 1957, page 12

28 .See K. K. Prah, Soc~al Back round of Cou d'etat,Publikatie, Nr. 1. Afdeling Zuid en ZuidoostAzie. Amsterdam, 1973. Page 116. In this par-ticular chapter the author gives an extended dis-cussion on Populism. See also P. Worsley, TheThird World, London 1967. G. Ionescu and E:-Gellner,Populism, London, 1972. R. Cohen, Class in Africa.In Socialist Re~ister London, 1972, page 231.

29The Casablanca Gro~p was the result of a meetingheld in Casablanca on January 7, 1961 betweenrepresentatives of Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Morocco,Lybia, Egypt and the Algerian Provisional Government.They adopted a charter which provided for a jointmilitary command and an African Common Market.Members of this group were pro-socialist, and astrong centrally organized African unity. They weresupported by a newly created body - the Pan AfricanMovement for East, Central, and Southern Africa(Pafmecsa). The Monrovia Group (19) met in theLiberian capital May 8-12, 1961. They met again inLagos, January 1962 to adopt a draft charter for anorganization of Inter-African and Malagasy states.

30Also this grouping had a predecessor in the Ghana-Guinea Union of 1958.

31See Africa Yearbook and Who's Who, London 1976,page 8.

32In the late 60s the Dutch Newspaper (Amsterdam)Waarheid published a number of revealing articlesabout Nigeria.See Waarheid (12/10/1968) Oorlog in Nigeria •••stinkt naar olie, (27/11/68) Shell and BP investerenin Nigeria (31/5/67) Nigerian een van de rijksteolielanden van Afrika. (31/7/67) and (1/8/67) Shellin Biafra.In 1968 the American Magazine Ramparts revealedthat European and American oil companies investe~over 1 billion dollars in Nigeria. These compan~esinclude Gulp Oil, Mobil, Texaco Standard Oil andPhillips; French companies ERAP Italy ENI. Th~most important of these companies was the comb~na-tion of Shell-BP•

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Gowon asked for higher oil royalties as hispredecessor Ironsi. Gulf oil refused. Shell-BPwaited for time. The oil companies speculated thatthe Nigerians would be better partners. In themeantime following the massacre of Ibos in theNorth of Nigeria, Biafra declared its independenceand the question of whom to pay the oil royaltiesbecame important. Nigeria blocked the Biafran coastbut allowed oil tankers free passage. Biafra wasconsidered by the oil companies to be an ideal "oil-state" (just like the oil sheikdoms in the ArabianGulf). In the course of the civil war, when it becameclear that Biafra was loosing ground the oil companiesstarted backing more fully the federal government.Only the French oil company continued to openly supportBiafra. The French company (ERAP) bought oil conce-ssions in Biafra (3/4 of Nigerian oil area) for15 million dollars for an area which could then deliver2 million tons of oil per year. The French branch ofRothschild-Bank also bought mining concession (15million dollars for tin, coal, gold and uranium),French support for Biafra and British support of theFederal Nigerian Government was as such for purelycapitalist interests. Waarheid (12/10/68).

33V• I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, page 9234v. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, page 9235V• I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, page 17636F• Fanon, Concerning Violence, Quoted here fromE. Kedourie, Nationalism in Asia and Africa, London.

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