BY HAFTU GEBREZGABIHER
Adhering to the ideals of founding fathers/mothers of pan Africanisms, African leaders distancing themselves from power abuse, power mongering and rent seeking they must ensure independent Africa in the true sense of the word. Unless united and strong Africans will fall prey to former predators. When it comes to technology Africans must learn to stand on their feet, so disclosed Prof. PLO Lumumba in a speech he delivered to the newly appointed cabinet members of Ethiopia. He began with the historic backdrop of Pan Africanism. Let us hear (read It) from the horse’s mouth.
(Speech by Prof. PLO Lumumba, Part I)
The subject of pan Africanism is one that remains as important today as it was in my view many years ago. Those of you familiar with the struggle for pan Africanism will remember its story, particularly through the activities of Africans in the diaspora to much more famous meeting held in 1945 in Manchester, United Kingdom. Africans in the Caribbean countries particularly in Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica were very particular about having connection with the continent. There were several meetings and familiar names such as; William from Trinidad and Tobago, Marcus Garvey and his call for Africans to go back to the mother continent and the African American such the W B E Dubois who was very active in the process of liberating the African Americans from slavery and discrimination saying that Africa must be free. People like Martin Luther king Jr. And people like Malcolm X talking of George Padma, talking about how Africa should be liberated. And we should work with people in the diaspora. And then the agitation was there that we must regain our independence and famously in 1949 Ghana’s Nkrumah say seeking first, the political kingdom and the rest will be given unto you. And I dare say that the rest has never been given to us. And even if it is coming, it is coming too slowly. But it is instructive that at that time, the spirit was about the continent of Africa. We were conscious, the leaders were conscious that Africa decolonized without unity would remain weak.
And of course, Africa is weak. The weakest continent on earth is this continent in which we are our continent. So the struggle for independence was everywhere across the world, across the continent of Africa. So when on the sixth day of March, Ghana regained high independence as Ghana, it was then gold coast. I think the most eloquent and the most passionate warrior for Pan-Africanism was Nkurmah he said on that day and again, later that the independence of Ghana means nothing if the rest of Africa is not free. And he meant when Ghana regained independence in 1957 one year later, Guinea regained her independence a year later, the French Sudan, or what we now call Mali regained her independence. They signed a pact to create what they call the African union. They thought at that time that would be Africa in her embryonic days.
And they invited Patrice Emily Lumumba in 1961. But of course, Lumumba was then assassinated in the month of January, 1961. And he won. This is one of the things that always stands out in my mind that Nkurmah of all us at that time was able to see that if we were not united, we would go nowhere. So in 1958, summons a meeting in a Ghana of the then independent African countries and tells them if we don’t unite now, the Neo colonialist is going to ensure that we remain disunited and we remain small, and they are going to ensure that the Neo colonial project continues.
In 1961 on the first day of January, again in Casablanca, Morocco, he tells his audience, let us unite now, before each one of our leaders begins to get used to power because power is easy to get used to you who have been elected will know once you become a minister and you’ve begun, you become used to people saluting you and opening your doors, if it happens for one month, you will find it very difficult. If you lose your ministerial position, when there is nobody to salute you and to open new.
That is how attractive power can be. And he wants the people then, but the colonial project was alive and well because as they were meeting in Casablanca Morocco, there was another group that was meeting in Monrovia in Liberia. That is how Africa started splitting, creating two groups, the Casablanca group and the Monrovia group, the Casablanca group, which comprised, I think famously Kwame Nkrumah was there from Ghana, Gamal Abdul Nasir was there from Egypt, Ahmed Dembela was there from Algeria, Madebo Kieta was there from Mali.
They took the view unite now. The Monrovia group comprised of William Tubman at that time, Emperor Haile Selassie was also in the Monrovia group. Malimu Kambragan was in the Monrovia group. They took the view; we want to unite, but gradually, let it be gradual so that when Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia convenes a meeting in Addis Ababa on the 23rd through to the 25th of May 1963, there were two groups already.
The Pan African agenda is already being watered down. There was the Casablanca group and there the Monrovia group. The creation of the OAU was a product. It was a victory for the Monrovia group. There were 32 heads of states and government who met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on the 23rd through to the 25th day of May, the year, 1963. And I want you to listen to all of those speeches or the compilation of them. There is a compilation of them that was made in the year 2013 when we were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the organization of African Unity.
Listen to all the speech. And I pick out a speech from the leader of Central African Republic, David DACO, David says “Central African Republic is so small that if we are not a part of an African union, the French will come again and they have come again.”
Malimu Nierere of Tanzania said “we are not here in order to remind ourselves of how important unity is, we are here to talk about the unity of Africa. The host Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia says it is important for us to realize that we make sacrifices for the future because disunited Africa will never realize our potential, but the most passionate speech, again, was that of Kwame Nkrumah. He tells them, let us not leave here without one government, without one army, without one currency, and without having chosen a capital. And I proposed that the capital of the new Africa either be located in Bangi in Central African Republic, or Léopoldville, now Kinshasa, in the democratic Republic of Congo, but I’m open to any other suggestion. And let us leave here.
Once we have put together a council of foreign ministers in order to begin to work towards an African Union, that is Kwame Nkrumah and nobody listened to him. Ended up with the OAU and the story of the OAU can be told and retold. Some say that it was a toothless bull dog. Others say that it was not even a dog, but whatever it was, it cannot be denied that it made a contribution to the process of decolonization of the continent in many ways, complete with the establishment of the liberation unit of it, which was headquartered in Dare Salam in the United Republic or Tanzania, which was spearheaded the de colonization of quite a number of countries at that time. But the point that I’m making is that the pan African spirit at that time was about a United Africa, because he will remember at that time that France never wanted to leave and has never left.
It is always instructive that when the French left, they formed an organization called organization for French speaking countries. The British also created their own Commonwealth of independent nations. But what is instructive is that the Queen is always the head of those independent nations. Never understood that perhaps the presidents do the Portuguese, of course, you know, never left easily until 1980 when I was an adult. They were still fighting in Mozambique, in Cape, married in Guinea, in Ola, in Mozambique, the apartheid regime of course only left in 1994. And I wonder whether they have left, that is Africa for you.
The fears of Kwame Nkrumah that “if we are not united, we would have problems,” started haunting us. He said that if we are not united in the pan African spirit, what is going to happen is that the imperialists are going to control us. They are going to emphasize our ethnic differences and they are going to ensure that we begin fighting amongst one another. While we do so they are going to exploit us.
The Ethiopian Herald October 16/2021
