Pan-africanism has a double character: it is at the same clip ( I ) an international political motion and ( two ) a socio-political world-view. a philosophical and cultural umbrella construct. which seeks to rectify the historical and cultural indignation that Europe has perpetrated on the continent during the past several centuries.
An international motion
As an international motion. the term denotes the advanced elements in Africa that have as their common end the integrity of all Africans and the riddance of colonialism and white domination from the continent.
The First Pan-African Congress was held in London in 1900. and was followed by others in Paris in 1919. in London and Brussels ( 1921 ) . London and Lisbon ( 1923 ) . and in New York City in 1927. These conventions were organized chiefly by W. E. B. Du Bois[ 1 ]and attended by the North American and West Indian black clerisy. These. nevertheless. did non suggest immediate African independency. instead. they favored gradual self-determination and ‘interracialism’ .
In 1944. several African organisations in London joined to organize the Pan-African Federation. which for the first clip demanded African liberty and independency. The Sixth Pan-African Congress was convened in Manchester. England. in 1945. to which came future political leaders of Africa such as Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya. Kwame Nkrumah of the Gold Coast. S. L. Akintola of Nigeria. and Wallace Johnson of Sierra Leone. At the Manchester Congress. Nkrumah founded the West African National Secretariat to advance a alleged ‘United States of Africa’ .
Pan-africanism can besides be considered as anintergovernmental motion ;which was launched in 1958 with the First Conference of Independent African States in Accra. Ghana. Ghana and Liberia were the lone sub-Saharan states represented ; the remainder were Arab and Muslim.
Thereafter. as independency was achieved by more African provinces.other readingsof Pan-Africanism emerged. including: the Union of African States ( 1960 ) . the African States of the Casablanca Charter ( 1961 ) . the African and Malagasy Union ( 1961 ) . the Organization of Inter-African and Malagasy States ( 1962 ) . and the African-Malagasy-Mauritius Common Organization ( 1964 ) .
In 1963 the Organization of African Unity ( OAU ) was founded to advance integrity and cooperation among all African provinces and to convey an terminal to colonialism ; and by 1995. it had 53 members. The OAU struggled with boundary line differences. aggression or corruption against one member by another. separationist motions. and the prostration of order in member provinces.
One of its longest committednesss and greatest triumphs was the terminal ofapartheidand the constitution of bulk regulation in South Africa. Attempts to advance even greater African economic. societal. and political integrating led to the constitution in 2001 of the African Union ( AU ) . a replacement organisation to the OAU modeled on the European Union. The AU to the full superseded the OAU in 2002. after a transitional period.
A socio-political world-view
Pan-Africanism is besides asociopolitical world-view. which seeks to unite and elate both native Africans and those of the African Diaspora. as portion of a “global African community” .
As originally conceived by Henry Sylvester Williams of Trinidad. pan-Africanism referred to the integrity of all Continental Black African civilizations and states. The construct shortly expanded. nevertheless. to include all Black African-descended people worldwide. who had been dispersed to the United States of America. the Caribbean. Latin America and even parts of the Middle East and South Asia through the trans-Atlantic and Islamic/East African slave trades and. subsequently. in-migration.
More late. the term has expanded to embrace theDravidianBlacks of India. including the Tamil. Siddi. Kamil. Kanikar and others ; the Andamanese IslandNegritosand the Black Aboriginal populations of Australia. New Guinea and Melanesia. Pan-Africanism as a motion really began in the West Indies. non Africa. Williams coined the term at the 1900 Pan-African Congress. To day of the month. the Afro-Jamaican Marcus Garvey [ 2 ] has led the largest pan-African motion in universe history with his UNIA-ACL organisation that he founded in Kingston. Jamaica in 1912. and ‘Garveyism’ rapidly spread in the United States when he moved his central office to Harlem in 1914.
Pan-Africanism in kernel means the integrity of all Black African descended people worldwide irrespective of ethnicity/culture or nationality. TheRastafarianmotion of Jamaica grew out of pan-Africanism. when Marcus Garvey declared ‘look to Africa for the crowning of a Black king’ ; the Rastas looked to Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia. ( Ironically. Garvey criticized Selassie on many issues ) .
Besides a subdivision of the pan-African motion is the Afro-centric motion. of whom Cheikh Anta Diop and his ‘idealogical son’ Molefi Kete Asante are the title-holders. This motion centres on reexaming African history from a pro-African position as opposed to the a pro-European 1. a return to traditional African constructs and civilization and frequently espouses the position that Egypt and some other civilisations were and should be acknowledged as holding Black African beginning. Besides associated with pan-Africanism is Black Nationalism.
During apartheid in South Africa there was a Pan Africanist Congress that dealt with the subjugation of Black South Africans under White apartheid regulation. Other pan-Africanist organisations include Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association-African Communities
Pan-Africanism is frequently criticized for overlooking the cultural and cultural differences every bit good as different socio-political fortunes.
Role of Pan-africanism in the modern history of Africa
The function that pan African motion has played in minimising inter-governmental struggles and ‘civil war’- like state of affairss in some African states has been really important. The limitation of the page bound for the essay does non allow me to travel into the inside informations of these struggles. However. the polar function that the motion played in the proposals to reform the United Nations Organization deserves more than a casual reference.
The run for the proposed reforms of the United Nations Security Council ( UNSC ) . while bring forthing pyrotechnics around the universe. has besides opened up old historical lesions and heightened regional competitions in Africa.
The hottest competitions have been in Asia. peculiarly between India and Pakistan. and between Japan. South Korea and China. but Africa has besides exhibited some sort of divisions along regional and linguistic communication lines as states scramble for lasting seats in the Security Council.
African states cheating for the lasting seats have been South Africa. Nigeria. Kenya. Egypt and Libya. To that list. Senegal has been the latest add-on. The African Union ( AU ) is flummoxed as to which of its member provinces to back. and has yet to set up the standards to be used for choosing African states to the reformed Security Council. The entry of Senegal into the race has merely increased the quandary. and is an indicant of the AU’s indecisiveness. In making this leading vacuity. the AU is go forthing the choice of who will stand for Africa on the expanded UN Security Council to be determined by foreign nosy-parkers and regional power battles.
A working group that was appointed in January 2005 during the Abuja Summit of the African Union to do recommendations on the proposed United nations reforms presented its study to the Foreign Ministers on March 7. 2005 in Addis Ababa. but was deafeningly soundless on the choice standards for Security Council lasting seats.
What the AU stands to derive from a Reformed Security Council
Harmonizing to the “Ezulwini Consensus. ” which was adopted by the AU Foreign Ministers as Africa’s common place on UN reform. “Africa’s end is to be to the full represented in all the decision-making variety meats of the UN. peculiarly in the Security Council. which is the chief decision-making organ of the UN in affairs associating to international peace and security. ”
Many perceivers feel that the UNSC is now more of import than of all time to Africa. peculiarly refering affairs of intercession in the struggles happening within the part. A consensus as to the standard of UNSC rank is the least expected of the African States.
Mentions
Kadiatu Kann. African Identities: Race.State and Culture inEthnography.Pan-Africanism and Black Literatures. ROUTLEDGE. LONDON. 1998.
Kwame Anthony Appiah.In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture.Oxford University Press. 1992
