“We must unite now or perish” – President Kwame Nkrumah
We are African!
We meet here today not as Ghanaians, Guineans, Egyptians, Algerians, Moroccans, Malians, Liberians, Congolese or Nigerians, but as Africans. Africans united in our resolve to remain here until we have agreed on the basic principles of a new compact of unity among ourselves which guarantees for us and our future a new arrangement of continental government. If we succeed in establishing a new set of principles as the basis of a new charter or statute for the establishment of a continental unity of Africa, and the creation of social and political progress for our people, then in my view, this conference should mark the end of our various groupings and regional blocs. But if we fail and let this grand and historic opportunity slip by, then we shall give way to greater dissension and division among us for which the people of Africa will never forgive us. And the popular and progressive forces and movements within Africa will condemn us. I am sure therefore that we shall not fail them.
To this end, I propose for your consideration the following: As a first step, a declaration of principles uniting and binding us together and to which we must all faithfully and loyally adhere, and laying the foundations of unity, should be set down.
As a second and urgent step for the realisation of the unification of Africa, an All-Africa Committee of Foreign Ministers should be set up now. The Committee should establish on behalf of the heads of our governments, a permanent body of officials and experts to work out a machinery for the union government of Africa. This body of officials and experts should be made up of two of the best brains from each independent African state. The various charters of existing groupings and other relevant documents could also be submitted to the officials and experts. We must also decide on a location where this body of officials and experts will work, to be the new headquarters or capital of our union government. Some central place in Africa might be the fairest suggestion, either in Bangui in the Central African Republic or Leopoldville [Kinshasa] in Congo. My colleagues may have other proposals.
The Committee of Foreign Ministers, officials and experts, should be empowered to establish: (1) A commission to frame a constitution for a Union Government of African States. (2) A commission to work out a continent-wide plan for a unified or common economic and industrial programme for Africa; this should include proposals for setting up: (a) A common market for Africa. (b) An African currency. (c) An African monetary zone. (d) An African central bank. (e) A continental communication system. (f) A commission to draw up details for a common foreign policy and diplomacy. (g) A commission to produce plans for a common system of defence. (h) A commission to make proposals for a common African citizenship. Africa must unite!
The day after Nkrumah’s speech, the 32 independent African nations assembled in Addis Ababa failed to go the whole hog for a strong United States of Africa. Instead they settled for a loose and weak Organisation of African Unity (OAU), whose Charter was signed the same day (25 May 1963) by the following countries: Algeria, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa), Dahomey, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Libya, Malagasy, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanganyika. Tshad [later Chad], Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, UAR [Egypt], and Upper Volta [later Burkina Faso].
10 Commentaires
A very historic opportunity that slid by and changed the spiral of African progress downwards.
It was clear at the time that irrespective of whether their people wanted so or not, some of the leaderships of the African chunks of lands that had been moulded as states or countries were not ready to add their pieces of lands (and the resources thereof) to make the greater whole as was being advocated by Nkrumah and others.
Those people were not needed at that historic meeting because they were anti-unity and known collaborators of the former colonialists.
Some present African governments are also anti-African unity, known puppets/collaborators of the west/former colonists. We should not rely on them when deciding continental matters. We should make this known to them.
The success of the quest for African unity lies with the African (and African descent) masses. The leaderships of the masses (not the governments) must seize the opportunity and rally the masses behind them to push forward the agenda and realize it.
This is a utopian fantasy at best the power and autonomy of African States could never be achieved within the limited scope of economic resources and political solidarity!!!!!! The European powers exist solely because they can project force of arms globally without fear of any serious resistance from the victims of its imperialism!!!!!!! Until the African states amass the military power to confront or overcome this fact their union would be laughable in the face of ruthless force being the ultimate contractual negotiator of independence!!!!!! When the war machine is sent to collect the booty who will stand to prevent this in real time!!!!!!! All the resources in the world without the industry of war machines superior to those who threaten your freedom is a waste of human energy on this planet in the context of out time!!!!!!!!!
No doubt, you are of the same sort as the imperialists and would consider this fantasy. If everyone reasoned linearly like you do ancient Egypt would still be supreme today. But what do we see? The Chinese who were so lowly decades ago, subject even to tiny Japan, seem to be on your backs and you cannot shake them off.
Indeed. If there is a people who need to walk up straight on this planet are African. We can and we will revive the glory of our ancestor.
This is not an utopia. What we need is the political will. We did not have a great standing military force during the era of fighting for independence. If we decide on what we want, there will not be a western country to come here and make war with us.
We have failed because we have not chosen to decide on this. If anything we have acted in solitude. This was the case with Burkina Faso with Thomas Sankara.
Where were other African states when Libya was attacked? We all stood aside. The challenge that we have to tackle is to release ourselves of who things
1. Mental Slavery/ colonization
2. Economic slavery
These chains are the ones killing us.
everyone knows the problems of Africa and the african people everywhere there are, everyone knows what needs to be done. But how do you get someone who is sleeping, who is brainwashed, who is under drug, who thinks that there is no solution, who says ‘if you can’t defeat them joins them even if they are rapping your mum how do you get them to stand up, not to march the streets, not to shout but silently get together to think together design a plan and work and educate the children to carry on, how do you do that! bcause this thing can’t be done in one life time. The caucass hasn’t done anything wrong, he is fighting to survive, if you know his history, where and how he started, you will understand his behaviour.China didn’t shout, complain, China accepted the humiliation, the suffering and silently and together started to work hard, very hard and today, oh yes today…..Look at all those murdered, malcom, n’kruma….Lumumba, they all made the same mistake of trying to solve a problem, you don’t have a problem to solve bcause its limited, you have a destiny to design, but here is not exactly the place to go any further…
That’s true. But on a continent as diverse linguistically and separated by distance as Africa, how do you champion a cause without “shouting”? “Shouting” was not the undoing of our independence. The undoing is a more pertinent issue you mention – mentally-challenged and brain-washed “leaders” like Houphet Boigny and Senghor who preferred to loiter about Paris in wonderment at the “european” than to roll-up their sleeves and work for their own people.
Of course, Nkrumah could have been politically wiser instead of directly confronting the west, simply because the west had too much power. Nkrumah’s loss was the greatest loss to Africa in the past 100 years. With leaders like him, Sankara, Mugabe, Lumumba, DuBois, and Malcolm X, we as Africans would have found our true identity in this world and be able to assert ourselves as Africans. How far from the goal of independence we have fallen – Spineless parasites on our own continent, off our on resources.
Respect and brotherhood is the first step to take inorder to take the path of African fraternity and uniting their powers.
That is lacking badly now. Look at what Ethiopia is dowing to Somalia and the somalis!!! destroying the country massacring its people!!! will that unite Africa???
Obviously, the majority of president’s then, as today, had not overcome their petty tribal prejudices, even as we see today all over Black Africa, and could not interpret the new global context
into which the newly independent countries had been thrust. It was no longer Ibo against Yoruba or Hausa in the West, or Oromo against Amhara in the East; This gathering as if impervious to the
consciousness movements in both the Francophone and Anglophone Americas, and even to the immediately passing experience of physical colonialism; these narrow-minded and less than insightful
“leaders”, the majority of whom were carefully groomed by the colonial governments, were incapable of perciving any theat from the european countries or being true representatives of their people.
Regardless that only in aggresive unity lay the future of the young continent, that is why it did not engender much support from the like of Houphet Boigny.
The embarrassing lack of insight into the painful history of colonialism by those who put forth themselves as our leaders, which colonialism was still fresh in the minds of the masses of the
continent, the lack of foresight and the wisdom of the polity chosen by this gathering is very stork today.
Todays much touted African union is an affront to the ordinary people of Africa and is only a gathering of egocentric pretenders who, only through the general global social ignorance of the African
electorate, come to power: the AU is without any practical vision and, unfortunately, also a gradualist approach, because after over 10 years of its formation it is doubtable that it is much
different from the previous organization.
Where do we see the “renaissance” frequently bandied about when the AU was being formed? Do we see a common African strategy for all the major production centers on the continent from textiles, to
agriculture for our basic necessities (which we now import from all over the world rather than produce from the vast resources at our disposal), to industrial raw materials which we ship to the EU,
US, BRIC, and Japan for a pittance, to precious earth minerals we ship all over the world? Are these areas of production not still controlled by foreign interests? Even worse, they are now in the
hands of Chinese and Indian corporations, as well, who were as colonized as we were about 80 years ago.
The evidence of the inefficacy of the AU is clear:
1. there is more division amongst African countries now than at independence, and an even stronger hegemony by Europe and America on our economic affairs than at independence.
2. The AU stood by idly watching whiles Laurent Gbagbo was arrested by the French, has idly stood by while china and india present a new neo-colonialist threat and has indeed welcomed such foreign
intiatives as “dvelopment asistance.” It seems we never learn that africa is never seen i practice as a partner in economics by any country but a region to be exploited to support foreign political
and economic agendas.
3. Individual African countries cherish their ties to European countries more than their ties to the constituents of the AU, cherish their budgetary support from “development partners” in Europe
and US and Japan more than they are willing to use their own internal resources to work independently of these powers, and persistently disrepect the political rights of their contitunts whiles the
African Union stands by trumpting a democratic agenda as the foundation for a future African renaissance.
Regardless of the above it is time we black africans recognized that the continent as a whole can never be united into one multi-racial polity as is vainly imagined today by the AU. We share no
common political or social or economic bond with the Arab north of the continent. It is shallow thinking and foolish to imagine that we can forge such a union when the Arabs show more importance to
the Arab league than they do to Africa. The situation of the former Sudan is a stark illustration that Afro-Arab relationships are only imagined by those who are very idealistic. The Arabs in
Africa were also instruments of Colonialism and slavery which, if these were the same reasons for rejection of European domination, then it is right to reject any such unions with Arabs. we can
have no unity with any whose hands are as bloodied as the European colonizer and slaver. Let us be brutally frank that the current AU is misconceived, lacks any useful direction, and cannot achieve
any meaningful objective unless there is a radical shift in dogma and pratice to coopt all black africans on the continent and in the diaspora into the AU because, foremost, the inspiration and
intellectual force behind Black Pride and our independence movements did not come from the continent but in the Americas! Amongst the likes of Marcus Garvey and WEB DuBois. These have a heritage in our continent us much as we do. Political power, economic power can only begin when we begin to be conscious of our identity in this world, and realize that we need to be one in purpose and planning with our brothers across the Atlantic and all over the world.
It’s not too late, we still have the opportunity to unite. Nkrumah wasn’t just a freedom fighter but a unifier and a prophet as well