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The Legacy of the Pan – African Movement

By

Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes

Table of Content

Introduction

1. Defining Pan-Africanism

2. Cultural Pan-Africanism; the Legacy of Ethiopia

2.1 Origins of Ethiopianism

2.2 The Impacts of Ethiopianism

3. Intellectual Pan-Africanism

3.1 The Impacts of Intellectual Pan-Africanism

3.1.1 The Development of Discourses and Other Movements

3.1.2 Class and rhetoric

3.1.3 Unity

3.1.4 Solidarity

Conclusion

2

“No matter how hot the water from your well, it will not cook your

rice,”

African proverb cited by Amical cabral

Introduction

Pan-Africanism has been a complex movement of black people in the

world against Eurocentric domination in Africa and the Diaspora.1 The

movement witnessed fundamental changes across space and time,

and along political, geographical, and ideological variations. In Africa,

Pan-Africanism was precipitated by the 1885 Berlin conference that

witnessed the scramble for the continent among European colonial

powers (Masilela 1994:255). Therefore, during colonialism, it became

an ideological vantage point from where the European supremacist

theories and practices were challenged. Especially, after the Second

World War, Pan-Africanism offered significant inspiration and political

guidance for African nationalist movements in their struggles for

independence from colonialism. This effort became triumphant in the

1960’s when half of Africa became independent.

Pan-Africanism experienced a major ideological shift during the 1960s

when Patrice Lumumba was assassinated through the intervention of

ex-colonial powers in the political life of the newly freed African nation,

Congo. The Congo Crisis witnessed the beginning of neo-colonialism in

Africa; it shifted the Pan-African ideology from its pre-occupation with

anti-colonial struggle to anti-imperialist struggle by embracing Marxist

ideology to resist neo-colonial capitalism (Masilela 1994:310).

In the Trans-Atlantic Diaspora, Pan-Africanism was by large a response

to slavery and racial oppression. It emerged as a universal aspiration of

1 The Diaspora in this paper represents the black people of African descent who live outside the of Africa.

3

black people for emancipation, unity and prosperity. This paper treats

classical Pan-Africanism as a cultural and intellectual movement of

black people outside Africa and assesses its link to the nationalist

movements in Africa and civil rights movement in America.

1. Definition of Pan Africanism

As the challenges faced by Africans were many, the responses to those

challenges were complex and many. Pan- Africanism can be viewed as

the collective response of black people to the hegemony of

Eurocentrism. It has been shaped by complex and long period of

suppression that ranges from slavery to neo-colonialism. It

encompasses various forms of ideological, philosophical and political

beliefs that seek to end the universal oppression of black people in the

name of race, religion, culture and civilisation. Despite the variations

and contradictions it witnessed with in itself, the cardinal principle of

pan-Africanism remained to be the view that the people of one part of

Africa are responsible for the freedom and liberation of their brothers

and sisters in other parts of Africa; and indeed, black people

everywhere were to accept the same responsibility(Campbell

1994:285) Hence, Pan-Africanism became a search for Afrocentric

values, culture and history on the basis of which the unity of black

people was to be animated and the “white man’s” hegemony,

challenged. According to Horace Campbell, it was “ an exercise in self-

definition sharpened by resistance to Eurocentrism (Campbell

1994:285).

The long period of oppression endured by oppressed people created a

sense of opposing duality in their views of who they are, and what the

world is all about .This contradictory personality inhabited by the

oppressed is the direct legacy of their past. According to Albert

4

Memmi, oppressed people respond to colonial domination in two ways:

by emulating the coloniser and practicing the latter’s culture while

submerging any of their own opposing traditions to it, and by rejecting

the colonizer’s culture and endeavouring to revive their own way of life

from the cultural elements of their past (Memmi 1965:20). From this

perspective Pan-Africanism was expressed through cultural, intellectual

and political movements that are often conflated with each other - as a

movement of opposition against the west on the one hand, and as a

practical endeavour to emulate the west, on the other. It was

manifested as a movement to resist westernization as well as an

attempt to westernise Africa. As a mass movement it was driven by

cultural appeals to the glory of ancient Africa (Ethiopia), and as an

intellectual movement it was animated by European modern thoughts.

2. Cultural Pan-Africanism : the legacy of Ethiopia

The earliest and widest form of Pan-Africanism was known as

Ethiopianism (Campbell 1994:288). It started by freed ex-slaves who

withdrew from white dominated Baptist and Methodist churches, in the

late 18th and early 19th century (Fredrickson 1996: 59). In Jamaica,

when the first Ethiopian Baptist Church was established in 1784.

Ethiopianism represented the endeavour of black people to free

themselves from mental and physical bondages by instilling racial

pride among the people of colour. Although the movement was later

rejected by the Pan-African Intellectuals’ movement for having

‘demagogic leadership, intemperate propaganda and a tendency to

throwing a natural fear in to the colonial powers”, Ethiopianism was

nevertheless one of the most popular mass movements of black people

that took place outside Africa (Padmore 1947). It emanated from a

widespread belief in the glory of ancient Africa, which was symbolized

by Ethiopia. The movement aimed not only at the emancipation of

5

black people from slavery by ending racial injustices but also at their

repatriation to their original places in Africa. Therefore, Ethiopianism

was an attempt to revive African identity; it was a” back to Africa”

movement that wanted to redeem black people from Babylon, which

was the West, and to deliver them to the promised land of Israel,

which was Ethiopia. This symbolic use of Ethiopia as the representative

of the great African image indicates the endeavour of black people to

find identity and meaning for themselves outside the ideation of the

European view of history and reason. (Campbell 1994:292). Therefore,

a birds eye view to the historic portrays of Ethiopia could help to

understand what the aspiration of the pan-Africanists was during this

period.

2.1 Origins of Ethiopianism

Most historical accounts about Ethiopia and Ethiopians were

constructed from western written and legendary sources as well as

from the bible. The consistently positive references given to the name

Ethiopia from the bible and the existence of historical records about

the ancient empires of Ethiopia became the basis for the belief in the

existence of an original African civilisation and spirituality that

precedes much of Europe. The story of Ethiopia, which in Greece

means people with faces burned by the sun, came from ancient

historians including Homer, Herodotus and the Ptolemy era writers.

Homer wrote about the “blameless Ethiopians”, who were loved by the

gods, and the “high souled Ethiopians” who were the children of the

almighty son of Koronos (Frank M. Snowden 1983:46). Herodotus, who

is often viewed as the father of history, made a more detailed account

of Ethiopia of the 5th century BC (Herodotus 440 B.C.E.). According to

him, Ethiopians were people who lived by the streams of the Nile

worshipping the gods. They were “the tallest and handsomest men in

6

the whole world” and “longer lived than anywhere else”. They “clothed

in the skins of leopards and lions, and had long bows made of the stem

of the palm-leaf ... They ate boiled flesh, and had for their drink

nothing but milk“… There, [in Ethiopia], gold is obtained in great

plenty, huge elephants abound, with wild trees of all sorts, and ebony

(Herodotus 440 B.C.E.)...

The same historical accounts by Herodotus mentioned the eighteen

Ethiopian kings and one queen that ruled Egypt for long time. These

historical records from European sources about the achievements of

black people in Ethiopia contradicted with the common historiography

of European thinkers about the continent and the people.

After the 5th Century BC, the personal account of the European

geographer and historian Agatharchides about the social and economic

life of Ethiopians presented a more direct negation to the virtue of

individual accumulation that was highly regarded by the west:

They [Ethiopians] were free from want; greed, and envy. Unlike Greek, they rejected useless things; strive for a divine way of life with no desire for power; they were not distressed by strife, nor did they imperil their lives by sailing the sea for the sake of gain. Needing little, they suffered little; gaining possession of what was sufficient they sought no more. And they were not governed by laws (Frank M. Snowden 1983:49-50).

These historical records inspired black leaders to agitate the people to

redefine their identity according to their African roots and reclaim their

proper places in the world(Hensbroek 1999:47). 2 Further references

2 This refers to the discourse of neo-traditionalism that was advocated by early Pan-Africanist leaders such as Blyden who advocated the separately unique destinies of all races. Blyden referred Africans as Ethiopians and concluded that “ each race is endowed with peculiar talents.Hence Ethiopians have always served, will continue to serve the world” Hensbroek, P. B. V. (1999). Political Discourses in African Thought. London, Praeger Publishers.

7

about Ethiopia came from the Bible, especially from Psalms 68.31

which says: “ Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God’.Such

references had powerful effects in the bid to encourage black people to

change the European image of God by an African image. Marcus

Garvey declared the significance of this process to black Christianity:

We Negroes have found a new ideal. Whilst our God have no color, yet it is human to see everything through one’s own spectacle, and since the white people have seen their God through white spectacles, we see our God through our own spectacles.... We Negroes believe in the God of Ethiopia, the everlasting God-God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, the one God of all ages. That is the God whom we believe, but we shall through the spectacle of Ethiopia (Nelson 1997:69) .

In 1920, Garvey gave a prophecy to his followers saying: “Look to

Africa when a Black king shall be crowned for the day of deliverance is

near”(Chen 1998:241-242). This prophesy became one of the basis for

the raise of Rastafarianism in Jamaica as his followers believed that the

prophesy was fulfilled when Ras Tafari was crowned in 1930 as ‘From

The Lion of Judea, King of Kings, Haileselassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia’.

2.2 The Impacts of Ethiopianism

Ethiopia became a source of racial pride for black people due to its

ancient civilisation and glamorous history, as well as victory against

and independence from colonialism. However, there were other

cultural movements that mounted strong resistance to European

hegemony. To wit : the African Independence Church Movement of

Mourides in West Africa, the John Chilembwe movement in Malawi, the

Ethiopian Orthodox Church movement in South Africa, Harry Tuku in

Kenya, Simon Kimbangu (kimbanguism) in Congo and Rastafarianism

in Jamaica were of the most important ones(Campbell 1994:292).

However, these and many other cultural resistances were prosecuted

as witchcraft and superstitious, not only by Europeans but also by

8

Christianised Africans and hence, were harshly suppressed.

Ethiopianism on the other hand remained as an emblem of classical

Pan-Africanism due to the reputed position the name Ethiopia occupied

in the bible and history.

Ethiopianism and the Garvey movement offered strong agitation for

“negro brotherhood’ to resist the physical and psychological

domination of Europeans over black people(Campbell 1994:290). It

propagated a distinct African identity as opposed to a European or

American identity. However, its ideological and philosophical roots

emanated from the West than from Africa. Garvey himself established

the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914, and

appeared to have envisioned Africa’s future through the spectacle of

the European scientific revolution:

Now in the twenty century we are about to see the rebuilding of Africa; yes, a new civilization, a new culture shall spring up from among our people and the Nile shall once more flow through the lands of science, of art and literature, wherein will live Black men of the highest learning and the highest accomplishment (Nelson 1997:70)

Ethiopianism itself had little connection and similarity with the factual

cultural elements and practices of the people in Africa. African -

American missionaries from the Garvey movement were extensively

engaged in preaching the bible to Christianize indigenous African

beliefs in South Africa. This in effect was contrary to the cause of

emancipation as the bible was one of the twin instruments of coercion

and consent that was used to rationalize the European colonial rule

over Africa (Tongun 1994:255). Therefore, it is possible to argue that

the movement had the counter effect of legitimizing colonial

subjugation in Africa. Moreover, the earliest African National Congress

(ANC) leaders received their formal training from Black universities and

9

colleges in the US, and it is believed that the Christian influence had a

critical role in adopting a non-violent strategy for national liberation in

South Africa (Tongun 1994:255). The civil rights movement led by

Martin Luther King Jr. in the US was also highly influenced by the

Christian belief of “love your enemy” and “turn the other cheek”

(Fredrickson 1996:59).

In conclusion, although Ethiopianism and the Garvey movement were

motivated by ideological and philosophical beliefs that seek to replace

Eurocentrism by Afrocentrism, in practice they offered little alternative

when it comes to the question of what the content of Afrocentric

values should look like. On the contrary, they mitigated spiritual and

cultural resistances against the development of local conditions in the

process of Westernizing Africa. African indigenous knowledge was

discarded as irrelevant to the need of the continent and the local

cultural practices were resented as demonic, backward and useless.

Finally, the longing for modernity without achieving modernization left

Africa expectant of Europe’s assistance for development. Yet, one

legacy of the overall cultural movement of classical Pan-Africanism

appeared to have remained defiant of Eurocentric values and

consumerism. This was the rise of Rastafarianism and Bob Marley as a

popular singer for freedom:

Emancipate yourself from mental slaveryNone but ourselves can free our mindsHave no fear for Atomic energyFor none of them can stop the time.

“The power of art that Bob Marley’s music represented [did] more to

popularize the real issues of African liberation than the several leaders

of backbreaking work by Pan Africanists and international

revolutionaries”(Campbell 1994:302). Through reggae music, Pan-

Africanism maintained some aspects of its cultural elements with its

10

classic aspiration for the freedom and unity of black people anywhere

in the world.

3. Intellectual Pan-Africanism

Classical Pan-Africanism, in its narrower sense, is formally recognized

as the movement of black intellectuals in the first half of the 20th

century in America and Europe.3

The formal beginning of this movement dates back to 1900 AD, when a

black West Indies barrister, H. Silvester Williams, organised a

conference for “men and women of African blood, to deliberate

solemnly upon the present situation and the outlook for the darker

races of mankind”(Langley 1979:738). His initiative sparkled a new role

for black intelligentsia in the history of black struggle against racial

injustice and colonial domination. William’s motto: “Only a Negro can

represent a Negro”, attracted participants from England and America,

and led to the formation of the Pan African Congress (PAC), which later

became the unifying body for the entire movement of the Pan-African

intelligentsia.

Another pan-African conference was organised in 1919 at a time when

the victors of WWI were to slash a peace deal in France. Many call this

conference the first Pan African Conference due to the diversity of its

participants and the intensity of the issues raised during the

conference. It was organised with 57 delegates from 15 countries out

of which 12 participants were from 9 African countries. The main

concern of the organisers was to appeal to colonial powers to treat the

native people in their colonies, fairly. They requested the Versailles peace

treaty participants to adopt an international legal code for the social,

3 This approach however ignores the various facets of the African social movements that were lodged at various levels in Africa and across the world.

11

economic and political administration of “native peoples” in their

colonies. They pleaded for the establishment of an international body

with in the League of Nations to administer the Ex-German colonies in

Africa (Padmore 1947).

While presenting their proposal for the establishment of an African

political entity under the supervision of a mandates commission, they

were portrayed by the media as black traditionalists or Ethiopian

Utopists and black modernists or Negroes in business suits. The

Chicago Tribune, January 19th 1919 equated the move of the

participants to the vision of the movement of Ethiopianism: “An

Ethiopian utopia, to be fashioned out of the German colonies, is the

latest dream of the Negro race who are here..... It is a quite Utopian,

and it has less than a Chinaman’s chances of getting anywhere in the

peace conference, but it is nevertheless interesting” (Padmore 1947).

On the other hand the New York Evening Globe, February 22, 1919

presented the conference in a different light: “Sweated at long green

tables in the council room today were Negroes in trim uniforms of

American Army Officers, other American coloured men in flock coats or

business suits, polished French. Negroes who hold public offices,

Senegalese who sit in the French Chamber of Deputies”(Padmore

1947).

Despite the optimism that was created as the result of the end of the

First World War and the formation of the League of Nations, colonial

powers ignored the appeals of the Pan-Africanists and increased

exploiting their colonies to recoup their war losses. Moreover, racial

injustice in the Americas and Europe became increasingly intolerable.

In response to these challenges, the Pan-African Commission organised

a series of conferences in London, Paris and Brussels, in 1921. The

conferences focused on bringing the Pan-African movement to the

12

global political agenda. Participants in their resolution asserted that

“the habit of democracy must encircle the earth” and the Negro

problem should be studied by an international body(Padmore 1947). In

arguing their case, they used universally recognised moral standards

in the West, to show to the world that racial inequality was against the

dignity of human beings and is contradictory to the principles of

democracy and natural rights.

The struggle of the Pan-Africanists for racial justice had similar

ideology with the civil rights movent that came later on except the fact

that the Pan-Africanists were interested in mounting international

resistance against black oppression anywhere in the world. They called

for the “recognition of all civilised men as civilised” despite their

difference in race or colour(Padmore 1947). The chairman of the

movement, W. E. B. Du Boise’s powerful essays resonate the

conviction of the movement to universal racial justice in the world:

The doctrine of racial equality does not interfere with individual liberty; rather, it fulfils it. And of all the various criteria of which masses of men have in the past been prejudged and classified, that of the colour of the skin and texture of hair is surely the most adventitious and idiotic (Du Boise 1997:41).

This emphatic expression has its similar meaning in content with

Martin Luther King’s dream to see his people judged not by the colour

of their skin but by the content of their character. The Pan Africanists

believed that the freedom of black people in America and Europe was

inextricably bound with the freedom of black people in Africa. This view

has strong similarity with Martin Luther King’s view that injustice

anywhere was a threat to Justice everywhere. The universality and

indivisibility of justice held by the Pan-African Congress was practically

manifested in the resolution of the third Pan-African Congress that took

13

place in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1923. The conference concluded with

resolutions to be met for the development of the Negro race, the

absolute equality of all races, and the advancement of all civilisations

(Langley 1979:749). The participants condemned mob law and

lynching in America and the oppression of majority black Africans by

minority whites in Kenya, Rhodesia and South Africa. Especially with

regard to South Africa, the congress vehemently condemned the

practice of the government:

What more paradoxical figure today fronts the world than the official head of the great South African state striving blindly to build Peace and Good Will in Europe by standing on the necks and hearts of millions of black Africans?(Padmore 1947)

The Fourth Congress took place in New York in 1927 and passed

similar resolutions as the previous ones. Then, the movement became

relatively dormant until it was awakened by the increasingly assertive

voices of colonised people during the Second World War. This led to

the Fifth Pan-African Congress that was convened in Manchester,

England in 1945. Participants of the congress reflected upon the past

achievements of the Pan-African movement and introduced more

radical approaches to end colonialism from Africa. Unlike the

resolutions of the previous congresses that concluded with appeals to

the colonial powers to introduce concessions for their colonial subjects

in Africa, the Fifth Pan-African Congress, through its famous

“Declaration to the Colonial Peoples” addressed the colonised people

directly:

We say to the people of the colonies that they must fight...by all means at their disposal...The object of imperialist Powers is to exploit. By granting the right to colonial peoples to govern themselves that object is defeated. Therefore, the struggle for political power by

14

colonial and subject peoples is the first step towards, and the necessary prerequisite to, complete social, economic and political emancipation(Langley 1979:760).

The declaration resonated a new ideological shift from the past

regarding the realisation of political rights in Africa. Initially, the Pan-

African movement had been advocating the progressive realisation of

civil and political rights for Africans. They appealed to colonial regimes

in Africa to grant progressive concessions to their subjects, including

participation in local government and the right to benefit from African

resources. They believed that the grant of local self determination to

Africans would gradually lead to the attainment of full self

determination by the people. However, at the Fifth Pan-African

congress, they concluded that this belief was illusive.

Two major ideological and practical shifts emerged as a result the Fifth

Pan-African Congress: Firstly, the participants declared that the

realisation of freedom cannot come merely from the will of the

coloniser but through the struggle of the colonised people themselves.

Therefore, Africans should fight first for their own independence.

Secondly, the pan-African movement should primarily be conducted in

African by Africans themselves. This in effect shifted the centre of the

struggle from the Diaspora to the mainland Africa. Consequently, the

6th and 7th Pan-African congress took place in Tanzania in 1974 and in

Uganda, in 1994, respectively. Due to these, The Fifth Pan-African

Congress became a watershed event that played a significant role in

stimulating the anti-colonial struggles and the wars of liberation of the

1950s and early 1960s in Africa (Watkins, Alkalimat et al. 1994).

3.1 Impacts of Intellectual Pan-Africanism

3.1.1 The development of discourses and other movements

15

Pan Africanism resisted the European claim of the superiority of the

white race over the black race using western and non-western

methods. Black intellectuals using western methods presented texts

that refuted the myth of white civilisation. Du Bois asserted that the

White man’s burden was the black mans burden. “ The problem of the

twentieth century is the problem of the colour-line – the relation of the

darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and

the islands of the Sea”(Du Bois 1997:54). Against the views of Hegel,

Hume, Kant, Ranke and others who view Africa out of human history

and devoid of any contribution to human civilisation, Dub Bois and

Cheikh Ante Diop articulated that Egyptian civilisation was the creation

of black Africans.4 Although less accepted by many, the presentation

of such views heightened the spirit of the struggle against racial

domination.

A unique racial discourses developed from one of the earliest leaders

of pan-Africanism, E. Blyden, who believed in the idea of the separate

destinies of races (Hensbroek 1999:43-53). He considered each race as

having its own specificity that serves mankind. For Blyden, the spirit of

service the African had was more worthy than the European spirit

towards ruling. Therefore, Blyden had no problem with the European

political hegemony over Africa because in his view, “the one serves

mankind by dominating, the other by serving”(Fredrickson 1996:68-

69). Blyden suggested that the African must advance by the methods

of his own. He must posses a power distinct from the European. Some

criticise his idea as anti-racist racism. Blyden himself accepted

scientific racism but reversed its importance and suggested that Africa

4 Cheikh Ante Diop presented his Doctoral dissertation on The African origins of Civilisation in 1955 at Sorbonne arguing that Egyptian civilisation which was the origin of Greece, was African Civilisation, and his work was rejected. Recently, the British historian Martin Bernal in his book Black Athena claims to have confirmed the claim that Egyptian civilisation was African [black] civilisation.

16

was the exemplar of Europe, not the other way round (Hensbroek

1999:52).

Unlike the discourses that tried to signify Africa’s identity, originality,

antiquity and glory in relation to or independent from Europe, other

discourses that viewed Europe as a model for Africa developed in the

Western part of Africa. One of the prominent supporters of this view

were members of freed slaves who returned from the Americas to

resettle in Africa. The resettlers brought with them the American racial

prejudice with the American political ideals and felt more Christian, whiter and

hence, more civilized than the local African population (Hensbroek 1999:29).

Members of other groups that viewed Europe as a model and an ally to Africa’s

future were called the “recaptives”. These were Africans who were captured and

sold to slavery, often by other Africans, and were rescued from slave ships by the

British. They often settled in Sierraleon while the resettlers were dominant in

Liberia. They soon became keen to learn English and follow the Christian

religion from the Angelical and Methodist missionaries, and formed the ‘Creole’

community based on European values and ideals and demanded participation

and greater role in the colonial administration. While the Creoles called

themselves “ black Europeans”, they were often portrayed in Europe as “

savages posturing as Europeans” (Hensbroek 1999:30-31). the most influential

scholar from this group was Africanus Horton who became the founder of the

modernist model of thought in Africa (Hensbroek 1999: 155).5

3.1.2 Class and Speeches

5 Horton believed in a universal and hierarchical path towards civilisation in the world. He accepted an Africa far behind Europe and declared what the mission of development in Africa should look like as :“ to raise the nations of Africa from the debased and degraded state to which they have fallen, both morally and physically, to free them from the bloody and demoralizing influence of beastly superstition; from polygamy; from domestic slavery; from the paralysing effects, as regards productive industry, of customs and institutions which…prevent the creation of that capital by which alone the works necessarily attendant on civilization can be executed” Hensbroek, P. B. V. (1999). Political Discourses in African Thought. London, Praeger Publishers.

P. 35. Horton is often criticised as “the Black Englishman”.

17

Arguably, Intellectual Pan-Africanism became the basis for the

emergence of a new ruling class in Africa. The heads of the movement

assumed leadership positions on the basis of their education in

Western universities and colleges. These intellectuals viewed

themselves as “civilised men” despite black, and struggled to shift the

“measure of man” from the colour line to the intellectual line. They

resented against the unequal treatment they received as “Negroes”

despite their intellectual excellence. In the resolution of the Second

Pan African Congress that was presented to the League of Nations,

they vehemently rejected the practice of this injustice on the class

they represented:

“...a bitter feeling of resentment, personal insult, and despair

is widespread in the world among those very persons whose

rise is the hope of the Negro race” (Padmore 1947)

The use of rhetoric language was also an important legacy of the

struggle. The Souls of Black Folk and other essays written by Du Bois

and numerous artistic expressions in the form of poetry, music and

other forms of literature heralded the cry of the oppressed souls.

“Out of the depths we have cried unto the deaf and dump

masters of the world. Out of the depths we cry to our own

sleeping souls. The answer is written in the stars” (Padmore

1047).

The legacy of such rhetorical use of language was effectively utilised

by Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement and by

President Barack Obama during his presidential campaign.

3.1.3 Unity

18

The most important contribution of the pan-African movement was the

development of the concept of unity among black people. Almost every

black movement and organisation had for its name the word unity or

union. The establishment of the Organisation of the African Unity in

1963, the proposal to establish the United States of Africa by Kwame

Nkrumah and the current African Union embody the generational

aspiration of the Pan-African movements for unity. Initially, unity was

envisioned in racial lines, as the unity of the black people, but

eventually it changed its focus to the unity of causes than that of

race/s.

The pan-African movement contributed for the idea of racial unity and

self reliance advocated by Malcolm X. In 1964, Malcolm X travelled to

Africa and gave speech in Ghana and Nigeria. He also participated in

the OAU meeting where he requested the African leaders to sue USA in

the UN for its racial injustice. Although no African leader had

implemented his request, Malcolm X continued to emphasise the

importance of the link between Africa and the African Diaspora. During

his period, Pan-Africanism started to be considered as an international

expression of Black Power (Harlow 1994:169).

3.1.4 Solidarity

During the 1960s and 1970s Pan-Africanism in the Diaspora played a

supportive role in the anti-colonial struggle. The African Liberation

Support Committee, League of Colored Peoples and the International

African Service Bureau, were formed to galvanise support for freedom

fighters in the continent. The African Liberation Support committee

observed May 25 as Africa’s liberation day and was active in

supporting independence movements in Zimbabwe, South Africa and

Namibia. Following the invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini in 1935,

several organisations and campaigns were organised in the spirit of

19

Pan-Africanism, to help the country regain its sovereignty. Among

these were: The Ethiopian Research Council, The Provisional

Committee for the Defence of Ethiopia, The Friends of Ethiopia, The

Medical Committee for the Defence of Ethiopia, The United Aid for

Ethiopia and others (Johnson 2007:132). In south Africa, farmers who

heard the invasion of Ethiopia began to march up the continent to fight

for Ethiopia’s liberation, only to be forced back by the British (Campbell

1994:292-294).

Although pan-Africanism was initially motivated by racial oppression, it

did not restrict the participation of white activists in the struggle. For

example, when the first Pan-African congress was established by the

membership of only 50 blacks, there were 150 white honorary

members supporting the congress. Moreover, during the Freedom

Riders Movement, the Ku Klux Clan party killed black and white riders

together. This contributed to greater unity during the civil-rights

movement. In Africa too, the idea of African unity on the basis of race

has been changed to unity on the basis of economic and geo-political

interests. Du Bois outlining the vision of the Pan-African movement

mentioned that:‘ out of these there might come not race war and

opposition, but broader cooperation with the white rulers of the world,

and a chance for peaceful and accelerated development of black folk’

(Padmore 1947). Early poetic voices of black anti-racial movements

also underscored the unity of cause over race.

The cause is not in the skinIts war over wheat-fields and coal pitsOver clothing and houses milk and bread.We against themSlaves against mastersFuse and fireYou from the black breast I from the white

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It’s war for the earth... (Kelley 1997:44).

Conclusion

Pan- Africanism as a collective response of black people to Eurocentric

hegemony can be viewed as one of the longest and widest forms of

social movements in history. It still is a continuing mantra sing along

by various formal and informal groups under a variety of beliefs,

philosophies and ideologies. Currently, the African Union has created a

Pan - African Parliament with the view to facilitate continental

integration by enhancing the involvement of the African people and

grass-root organisations on issues affecting the continent. Although its

political impact is significantly low, the Diaspora is considered as a

regional unit in the current African unity project.

The long history of Pan-Africanism can be viewed in light of two

paradoxical movements: as a take-off-Africa movement, and as a back-

to-Africa movement; as a search for distinct identity from the West,

and as a movement towards a rightful space within the established

order of the West. However, with the development of new global and

local forces of homogenization, the Pan-African project conformed to

the Hortonian paradigm of take-off to European modernity. Cultural

movements and their leaders have been repressed and replaced by

Westernised elites who lead Africa along the contradictory paths of

opposing the West and imitating the West.

The world is still experiencing unprecedented turmoil, and the future of

Pan-Africanism is uncertain; yet, it may not be too late to pay heed to

the counsel of Frantz Fanon- to create the new than to imitate the old

(Fanon 1965).

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Chen, W. (1998). Reggae Routs: The Story of Jamica Music. Philadelphia, Temple University Press.

Du Bois, W. E. B. (1997). The Souls of Black Folk. Boston and New York, Bedford Books.

Du Boise, W. E. B. (1997). To the World: Manifesto of the Second Pan-African Congress Modern Black Nationalism: From Marcus Garvey to Louis Farrakhan. W. L. V. Deburg. NY, Newyork Univeristy Press.

Frantz, F. (1965). The Wretched of the Earth. London, Macgibbon and Kee

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Herodotus (440 B.C.E.). The History of Herodotus by Herodutous, The Internet Classics Archive.

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