BY MULUGETA GUDETA
The briefest definition of politics might be “the art of the possible”. The founding fathers of modern African politics starting from the Organization of African unity (OAU) were in a way engaged in the art of the impossible so to say and won the day in the face of overwhelming challenges. Why the art of the impossible? Because, it was almost unimaginable or apparently impossible for African political leaders to throw away the shackles of colonialism in 1963.That is in the pursuit to find their first continental organization. The founding fathers tried and succeeded in doing what appeared impossible while the rest of the world was looking on from a good distance, and smiling cynically in the hope that the leaders would stumble at some point in their extraordinary drive for freedom and independence. The French say: Rira bien qui rira le dernier. (He, who laughs last, laughs best). The founding fathers of Africa laughed the best in 1963.
Africa has never been short of educated people who excelled in various fields of endeavors. Even during colonial rule, the sons and daughters of Africa have been pursuing their studies in Europe and America and displayed great intellectual and educational capacity by disproving the Western myth or deliberate lies that Africa and Africans were so backward that they could not develop their intellectual capacities and that only Western intellectuals could think for Africa. Africans have indeed showed the world that they are capable of achieving the highest educational levels as well as produce ideas that impressed even Western educational establishments.
The year 1963 was critical for Africa because it unleashed the long-suppressed human capacity and verve that laid dormant within the continent for hundreds years of colonial rule. The year gave tremendous momentum for the sons and daughters of Africa to achieve great deeds by coming together and overcoming the most important challenge of the time, namely the end of European colonialism on the continent. They did so without foreign assistance or with foreign ideas. They unleashed the independence decade with their own intellectual capacities and their natural talent for statecraft and statesmanship.
Many were in European colonial circles who doubted the ability of Africans to rule themselves without Western intellectual and other resources or assistance. They were wrong of course. African independence was achieved by Africans themselves as well as the subsequent construction or reconstruction of the continent on the basis of African labor, African knowledge and African spirit. Since the dawn of humanity, Africa was a land of wise people who had strong faiths in their own capacity to govern themselves the way they believed was in line of human dignity.
Africans before and after independence had produced some of the amazing spiritual, religious, political and economic systems at a time when the Europeans were living in caves and were struggling with the adversities of nature with their bare hands. Africans has its traditional thinkers, wise men and women, as well as soldiers who excelled in military knowledge for self-defense as they have been fighting against invaders of all descriptions all the times. Africans had their own medicine men who cured some of the incurable diseases that Western science has not so far managed to address.
They had native philosophers and educators who taught children religious and secular wisdom. There were also African traditional writers or bards who could put their ideas in writing and expressed the deepest wisdom of their ancestors. Africans had great fighters and strategists who defeated Western armies that dared invade and occupy their territories. However Western colonialism kept our continent in complete darkness and suppressed African native knowledge and spread colonial deceptions for hundreds of years.
It is against such a vast and original historical background that emerged the African intellectual giants of the 19th and 20th centuries who led the continent to freedom and independence by combining their knowledge of Africa they learned from their ancestors with modern education they received in Europe— the establishment of the Organization of African Unity OAU) in 1963 and the African Union (AU) in 2005. According to available information, “The Organization of African Unity (OAU) was established on 25 May 1963 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with 32 signatory governments.” Did not come spontaneously or without preparations. These events were the results of long, fearless, dedicated and bloody struggles Africans waged against the colonialists while educated Africans used Western knowledge to lead their countrymen and women to freedom and independence.
The first generation of African leaders who fought and won the fight for the establishment of the OAU were almost all well-educated intellectuals who properly grasped the historical dimension of their struggles and their responsibilities towards the African masses who were kept in darkness, poverty, diseases and ignorance. These leaders had to liberate themselves from the scourge of ignorance before they could liberate their people. Some of the best minds of the rime went to Europe or America to learn the way the white men developed their ideas in order to keep Africans in shackles. Their education was a necessary tool or a useful weapon not only to understand Africa’s enemies but also to beat them in their own political games.
The late and immortal Kwame Nkrumah was perhaps one of the best-educated leaders of the independence struggles, who not-only developed the basic tenets of colonialism in his various books but also practically led his country’s struggle for independence from British colonialism. According to available information, Nkrumah was, one of the key personalities who played a critical role in the establishment of the OAU. He is also one of the architects of the idea of Pan-Africanism that has served as a guiding light for all progressive Africans until this day.
There may be some people in the West or even within the continent that Pan-Africanism is a dying ideology. That is not however true. Pan-Africanism is the ideological compass that has led Africa’s progress from slavery to independence. It is also the compass that is still leading Africa from poverty to self-sufficiency in our times. In its essence, Pan-Africanism is nothing else but the idea of addressing Africa’s problems with African solutions, an idea that is gaining increased currency in our day.
Nkrumah’s vision was that Western neo-colonial ideas have proved useless in dealing with African problems and that Africans should look within themselves for effective ideas that would free them from neo-colonial oppression and exploitation. These ideas are articulated in his classic work entitled, “Neo-Colonialism, the last Stage of Imperialism” and elsewhere in his speeches and discussions. According to Wikipedia, “Kwame Nkrumah was a Ghanaian politician, political theorist and he as the first prime minister and president of Ghana having led the Gold Coast to independence from Britain in 1957.” He was also a poet who wrote the poem “Ethiopia shall rise.” Leopold Cedar Senghor is another champion of African independence and a great poet and intellectual. According to Wikipedia, Senghor was “a Senegalese poet, politician and cultural theorist who was the first president of Senegal. Ideologically an African socialist, he was a major theorist of Negritude.” His poem Black Woman about Africa sticks out.
The northern Africa Arab country of Algeria has produced some of the most distinguished freedom fighters in Africa who was “an anti-colonial activist and politician who governed Kenya as its prime minister from 1963 to 1964 and then as the first president from 1964 to his death in 1978.” While Jomo Kneyatta is always portrayed as a heroic freedom fighter against British colonialism what is often overlooked that he was also an intellectual who was alma mater at the University College London, School of Economics.
Emperor Haile Sellassie, despite his public image as a traditional feudal monarch, he was nevertheless the “father” of the immortal vision of African Unity that was intense, honest and lasting. Emperor Haile Sellassie was a sort of self-educated intellectual who read extensively and had a natural bent to understand politics not from books but intuitively, which is considered a genuine manifestation of true intelligence. That is why he is often considered sort of “greatest among equals” in the generation of post –colonial African and international politics.
Many educated Africans have also served as secretary generals of the OAU at various stages of the organization until it was transformed into the African Union. Notable among them were Ethiopian Kifle Wodajo who was OAU secretary general from 1963 to 1964, Daillo Telli from 1964 to 1972, Nzo Ekangaki from 1972 to 1974, William Eteki, Edem Kojo, Peter Onu, Ide Oumarou and others who were the intellectual elites who were educated in Europe or the united States and did the real day-to-day work of continental unity. Some of them were career diplomats or professional diplomat who served their countries with flying colors even after they left their OAU assignments.
The current motto that is fast becoming a kind of slogan for modern day African diplomacy is “Addressing African problems with African solutions”. This idea is not something that has popped up in the imagination some African politicians. It is rather a collective awareness that reflects the original spirit of the founding of the OAU which was basically a historic movement to help Africa rise from colonialism and neocolonialism through their own intellectual and spiritual resources. This call is still echoing in the conference halls of the African Union and continues to do so until it becomes a tangible reality with the economic integration and political unity of our dear and young continent.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 18 FEBRUARY 2023
