Pan-Africanism is a movement that aims to encourage and strengthen bonds of solidarity between all indigenous peoples of Africa along with all peoples of African descent. Based on a common goal dating back to the Atlantic slave trade, the Trans-Saharan slave trade, the Indian Ocean slave trade, the Red Sea slave trade, slavery in the Cape Colony, Inboekstelsel, slavery in Mauritius, and the Khoikhoi-Dutch Wars, the belief extends beyond continental Africans with a substantial support base among the African diaspora in the Americas and Europe.
Pan-Africanism is said to have its origins in the struggles of the sub-Saharan Africans against enslavement and colonizationAbdul-Raheem, Tajudeen (ed.), Pan Africanism: Politics, Economy and Social Change in the Twenty-first Century, New York University Press, 1996.. This struggle may be traced back to the first resistance on slave ships, including rebellions and suicides, through the constant plantation and colonial uprisings and the "Back to Africa" movements of the 19th century. Based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social, and political progress, it aims to unify and uplift people of African ancestry.Frick, Janari, et al. (2006), History: Learner's Book, p. 235, South Africa: New Africa Books. However, it was in the twentieth century that Pan-Africanism emerged as a distinct political movement that was initially formed and led by people from the Diaspora (people of African heritage living outside of the Continent). In 1900, Henry Sylvester Williams, a Trinindadian barrister, called a conference that took place in London's Westminster Hall to "protest stealing of lands in the colonies, racial discrimination and deal with other issues of interest to Blacks".
At its core, Pan-Africanism is a belief that "African people, both on the continent and in the diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny." Pan-Africanism posits a sense of a shared historical fate for Africans in the Americas, the West Indies, and on the continent itself, centered on the Atlantic trade in slaves, African slavery, and European imperialism.
Pan-African thought influenced the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity (since succeeded by the African Union) in 1963."AU in a Nutshell", African Union. (). The African Union Commission has its seat in Addis Ababa and the Pan-African Parliament has its seat in Midrand, Johannesburg.
Overview Pan-Africanism stresses the need for "collective self-reliance"."The objectives of the PAP", The Pan-African Parliament – 2014 and beyond. Pan-Africanism exists as a governmental and grassroots objective. Pan-African advocates include leaders such as Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Henri Christophe, François Duvalier, Aimé Césaire, Haile Selassie, Jomo Kenyatta, Edward Wilmot Blyden, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyerere, Robert Sobukwe, Ahmed Sékou Touré, Kwame Nkrumah, Gamal Abdel Nasser, King Sobhuza II, Robert Mugabe, Thomas Sankara, Kwame Ture, Ahmed Ben Bella, John Magufuli, Muammar Gaddafi, Walter Rodney, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, grassroots organizers such as Joseph Robert Love, Marcus Garvey, and Malcolm X, academics such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Anténor Firmin and others in the diaspora.Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis, pp. 250–278.Maguire, K., "Ghana re-evaluates Nkrumah", GlobalPost, October 21, 2009. Retrieved September 13, 2012. Pan-Africanists believe that solidarity will enable the continent to fulfil its potential to independently provide for all its people. Crucially, an all-African alliance would empower African people globally.
The realization of the Pan-African objective would lead to "power consolidation in Africa", which "would compel a reallocation of global resources, as well as unleashing a fiercer psychological energy and political assertion ... that would unsettle social and political (power) structures...in the Americas".Agyeman, O., Pan-Africanism and Its Detractors: A Response to Harvard's Race Effacing Universalists, Harvard University Press (1998), cited in Mawere, Munyaradzi; Tapuwa R. Mubaya, African Philosophy and Thought Systems: A Search for a Culture and Philosophy of Belonging, Langaa RPCIG (2016), p. 89. . Retrieved August 23, 2018.
Advocates of Pan-Africanism—i.e. "Pan-Africans" or "Pan-Africanists"—often champion socialist principles and tend to be opposed to external political and economic involvement on the continent. Critics accuse the ideology of homogenizing the experience of people of African ancestry. They also point to the difficulties of reconciling current divisions within countries on the continent and within communities in the diaspora.
As a philosophy, Pan-Africanism represents the aggregation of the historical, cultural, spiritual, artistic, scientific, and philosophical legacies of Africans from past times to the present. Pan-Africanism as an ethical system traces its origins from ancient times, and promotes values that are the product of the African civilisations and the struggles against slavery, racism, colonialism, and neocolonialism.
History
Intellectual and social origins Coinciding with numerous New World slave insurrections (hallmarked by the Haitian Revolution), the end of the 19th century birthed an intercontinental pro-African political movement that sought to unify disparate campaigns in the goal to end oppression. It was diasporic Africans' removal from the continent that enabled them to view it as a whole. Another important political form of a religious Pan-Africanist worldview appeared in the form of Ethiopianism. In London, the Sons of Africa was a political group addressed by Quobna Ottobah Cugoano in the 1791 edition of his book Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery. The group addressed meetings and organised letter-writing campaigns, published campaigning material and visited parliament. They wrote to figures such as Granville Sharp, William Pitt and other members of the white abolition movement, as well as King George III and the Prince of Wales, the future George IV.
First organisations
Modern Pan-Africanism began around the start of the 20th century. The African Association, later renamed the Pan-African Association, was established around 1897 by Henry Sylvester Williams, who organized the First Pan-African Conference in London in 1900."The History of Pan-Africanism", New Internationalist, 326, August 5, 2000.The History of Pan Africanism, PADEAP (Pan African Development Education and Advocacy Programme).Lubin, Alex, "The Contingencies of Pan-Africanism", Geographies of Liberation: The Making of an Afro-Arab Political Imaginary, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014, p. 71.
The Pan-African Congress series of meetings followed 1900's First Pan-African Conference that was held in London. A meeting of the Congress in 1919 in Paris (1st Pan-African Congress), 1921 in London (2nd Pan-African Congress), 1923 in London (3rd Pan-African Congress), 1927 in New York City (4th Pan-African Congress), and 1945 in Manchester (5th Pan-African Congress) advanced the issue of decolonisation in Africa.Hill, Sylvia (2007), "From the Sixth Pan-African Congress to the Free South Africa Movement", in William Minter, Gail Hovey, and Charles Cobb Jr. (eds), No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950–2000, Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press.
Among inhabitants of the African continent, it was the shared experience of colonial rule and resistance to it that fostered a unified African identity. Pan Africanism wasn’t just an idea, it pushed African countries to stand with Africa. Many African countries received exiles, protected them, and supported the liberation movement and helped fight apartheid because they saw South Africa’s struggle as Africa’s struggle. In the 1930s, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe's anti-colonial writings from the United States, Accra, and Lagos established him as the most prominent Pan-Africanist in the British West Africa. Then-Colonial Secretary Oliver Stanley called Azikiwe (Zik) "the biggest danger of the lot." Zik drew his inspiration on the Pan-African ideas of West Indians and African-Americans such as Edward Wilmot Blyden, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Marcus Garvey, as well as West Africans such as J.E. Casely Hayford and his allies in the National Congress of British West Africa. In his publication "Renascent Africa", he offered a vague program for a "New Africa," modeled on the New Negro Movement articulated by Alain Locke. Outside his writings, Azikiwe actively participated in Pan-African politics, promulgating intellectually, in person around the Black Atlantic from West Africa and the Caribbean to the United States and Western Europe.
The Fifth Pan-African Congress was a significant gathering, which brought together anti-colonial activists from the African continent and the Diaspora. Women such as Amy Ashwood Garvey and Amy Jacques Garvey helped to organise the Congress meeting and played a crucial role in the conferences.
Decolonisation and power
With the independence of Ghana in March 1957, Kwame Nkrumah was elected as the first Prime Minister and President of the State.Smith-Asante, E., "Biography of Ghana's first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah", Graphic Online, March 8, 2016. Retrieved March 23, 2017. Nkrumah emerged as a major advocate for the unity of Independent Africa. The Ghanaian President embodied a political activist approach to pan-Africanism as he championed the "quest for regional integration of the whole of the African continent".Mkandawire, P. (2005). African Intellectuals: Rethinking Politics, Language, Gender and Development, Dakar: Codesria/London: Zed Books, p. 58. Retrieved March 23, 2017. This period represented a "golden age of high pan-African ambitions"; the continent had experienced revolution and decolonization from Western powers and the narrative of rebirth and solidarity had gained momentum within the pan-African movement.
Nkrumah's pan-African principles intended for a union between the Independent African states upon a recognition of their commonality (i.e. suppression under imperialism). Pan-Africanism under Nkrumah evolved past the assumptions of a racially exclusive movement associated with black Africa, and adopted a political discourse of regional unityLegum, C. (1965). Pan-Africanism: a short political guide, New York, etc.: Frederick A. Praeger, p. 41.
In April 1958, Nkrumah hosted the first All-African Peoples' Conference (AAPC) in Accra, Ghana. This conference invited delegates of political movements as well as major political leaders. With the exception of South Africa, all independent states of the African continent attended: Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Sudan. This conference signified a monumental event in the pan-African movement, as it revealed a political and social union between those considered Arabic states and the black African regions. Furthermore, the conference espoused a common African Nationalist identity of unity and anti-Imperialism throughout the states. Frantz Fanon, journalist, freedom fighter and a member of the Algerian FLN party attended the conference as a delegate for Algeria.Adi, H., & M. Sherwood (2003). Pan-African History: Political Figures from Africa and the Diaspora Since 1787, London: Routledge, p. 66.