BY HAFTU GEBREZGABIHER (PART-II)
“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. And they started in January, 1961, they assassinated Patrice Emily Lumumba and Congo has never been the same again. In 1963, they assassinated Silvanus of Togo and Togo has never been the same again. Then Kwame Nkrumah himself was eliminated, all his writings, all his speeches banned, never to be read, never to be listened to until 1972, when Ignatius Kuang rehabilitated him, in Algeria, in Nigeria, and in Mali, everywhere, Coup D’état in Africa, here in Ethiopia 1974 coup and emergence of the Derg regime in east Africa, Uganda Coup D’état, in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania in 1971. All orchestrated because we were disunited and we were weak. These are some of the remarks from the speech by Prof. PLO Lumumba presented in this part. Keep reading part-ii of his speech.”
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 of 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 apartheidregime 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. And they started in January, 1961, they assassinated Patrice Emily Lumumba and Congo has never been the same again. In 1963, they assassinated Silvanus of Togo and Togo has never been the same again. Then there were Kwame Nkrumah himself in 1966.He was eliminated, all his writings, all his speeches banned, never to be read, never to be listened to until 1972, when Ignatius Kuang rehabilitated him, in Algeria, in Nigeria, and in Mali, everywhere, Coup D’état in Africa, here in Ethiopia 1974 coup and emergence of the Derg regime in east Africa, Uganda Coup D’état, in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania in 1971. All orchestrated because we were disunited and we were weak.
The predictions of our forefathers and founding mothers that disunited, we would remain weak, came true. That is the history of it. So that today, when we talk about the African continent and we talk about pan Africanism, we must understand it in the context of that history. And you will remember that it is not as if African never realized or never recognized that our weakness would be in our disunity. We did. We did, because regionally we were trying to integrate. We were in the east African community.
We were creating the east African community. In South Africa, we were creating SADAC, in West Africa, we were creating ECOWASS, in central Africa, we were creating the Organization of Central African communities in the North, we were creating the Maghreb. Even in this region, we were creating IGAD into something in the nature of an economic community. We were aware that Africa could only operate and operate meaningfully, if we were integrated, we are not trading with one. Another intra- African trade is not anything beyond 15%, the lowest anywhere in the world.
If you look at all our sector and look at them, look at our agriculture. Almost all African countries are not food importers. There is not a single African country that is in meaningful technology, not a single African country produces, a mobile phone yet the single most important ingredient in mobile telephony is to be found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, not a single African country producers, a car, and other than assembling completely knocked down kits. There is no meaningful production of pharmaceutical products in Africa. And if there was any doubt, COVID exposed it all African countries that 55 of them are waiting to either receive sign of act from China, Sputnik
from Russia, AstraZeneca, Johnson, or Modrna. And we don’t even know what they are because our bureaus of standardization don’t know if you ask the Ethiopian bureau of standards, what they are asking us to be injected with, they do not know. They just believe it is a vaccine because the Americans have said so, or because the Chinese have said, so Africa is weak. Even I suspect that this magnificent buildings might not been erected by Ethiopian engineers. When I see the signage in Chinese, I suspect it is the Chinese.
That is how weak we are. That is the reality of our mother continent. It is because we are politically weak. We are economically weak. Socially, we are disorganized culturally and spiritually, we are confused. That is the continent in which we are today. And the question, therefore, what would we do continental in terms of trade in the Lagos plan of action and some of you have been ambassadors. Some of you are, you are now serving cabinet ministers. You will grapple with this on a daily basis. Under the Lagos plan of action, Africa sat down in Legos and said, we are going to improve trade amongst ourselves, 1980 Legos plan of action. Did we do it? No, we did not do it.
We did not do it because the European Union was instead, engaging us under the African Caribbean, the Lome convention of 1975 or the convention of 2000 African remain the only continent which is described as Anglophone. In Kenya or Uganda, we are possibly only 20% speak the English language, we are Anglophone. In French, former French colonies, they are Francophone, in former Portuguese colonies, they are Luthophone and in some Arab countries, they are Arabophone.
That is who we. So when the OAU met in 2013, they asked the question what happened to the Pan African spirit. And when therefore they met in Sirte in Libya under Gadhafi, it was resolved in 1999 that the OAU be renamed and be referred to as the African union. And it was relaunched as you know, in Durban and South Africa in the year 2000. But one of the most important things on the, in the 2013 was the speech of the then chairman of the AU Nikosazanana Dilamini Zuma here in Ethiopia. And I want you to read that letter, which I’ll paraphrase in which she writes an imaginary letter to Kwame Nkrumah. It tells and apologizes to Kwame we apologize is to you because we did not listen to you. We are weak because we did not listen to you. We are divided into 54, 55, depending on whether the Moroccans agree that Sahrawi Arab is a country.
The Ethiopian Herald October 17/2021
