Looking to Nkrumah: Change-making and Ghana's political economy

We must proceed from our Nkrumaist standpoint of the clear recognition of Ghana today as a mal-developed and still under-developing neocolony firmly lodged in the capitalist stranglehold of globalising European imperialism. It is important to always bear in mind that American imperialism, which does not originate from, nor serve the strategic interests of, the indigenous peoples of the Americas nor of Africans in the Americas, is a creation, and indeed, an indispensable part, of European imperialism. Knowing very well our own African people worldwide, and knowing also 'the enemy' in terms of the world strategy of imperialism – as explained by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah in one of his classics, 'Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare' (1968) – will emphasise to us the imperative of seriously approaching the political economic tasks of progressive people-centred change-making in Ghana today from an Nkrumaist standpoint on the basis of the Osagyefo’s own exhortation that: 'Truth must always be told. It is a proof of strength, and even the hardest truth has a positive aspect which can be used.'

PRESIDENT MILLS AND CHAIRMAN RAWLINGS: DIFFERENCES IN GOING TO THE IMF AND WORLD BANK

To those who have raised the valid question of what are the differences between President Fiifi Atta Mills and his government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) on the one hand and, on the other, Chairman Flight-Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), when approaching the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the so-called World Bank and similar thinktanks and neoliberal zombie deployment institutions and agencies of imperialism, I dare say the possibilities of a difference may lie in the following:

- The Mills presidency is operating, with a considerable degree of 'rule-of-law' decency so far, within a multiparty liberal framework of bourgeois democratic governance, while Chairman Rawlings and the PNDC had operated quite arbitrarily within a no-party authoritarian framework of military-bureaucratic tyranny that was cleverly manipulated, through the mechanisms of neocolonialism, to serve the global capitalist system of the bourgeois dictatorship of imperialism. In spite of deserving commendation for maintaining Ghana as an oasis of relative peace in West Africa, Rawlings as the first president of the Fourth Republic of Ghana only made cosmetic reforms that kept his Bonapartist reign intact within this framework.
- The Mills presidency appears so far to be giving due respect to the independence of various actors on the Ghanaian political scene, pro-imperialist as well as anti-imperialist, including those of us endeavouring to adhere to a true Nkrumaist Pan-African revolutionary socialist orientation. The voices of the progressive forces of many tendencies are still being allowed to be freely expressed in the country, without insistence upon co-opting progressive elements into governmental and other institutions, structures and mechanisms of the neocolonialist state machinery of imperialism in Ghana today. Though not certain about the disposition towards repression of progressive forces by the security agencies and other bodies and organs of the state, we share the view that the Mills presidency is most unlikely to allow itself to be misused for harassing progressive activists, chasing them out or brutally forcing them to flee out of Ghana simply for carrying out their own independent politico-ideological and organisational activities.
- Progressive forces are not being obstructed by President Mills in publicly raising awareness, educating ourselves and the masses and organising from the grassroots to enable people to know the truth about imperialism in the colonial and neocolonial experiences of Ghana and Africa and about the workings of the IMF, the so-called World Bank and similar other institutions and agencies in the mechanisms of imperialism, as explained by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah in his book, 'Neocolonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism' (1965). Indeed, pro-Nkrumah forces have, within the first 100 days of the Mills presidency, been given the huge advantage in the declaration to make the birthday of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah the national founder’s day of the republic of Ghana! In so doing, President Mills has demonstrated his readiness to boldly take risks and to not hesitate to even gamble for the progressive cause of our Pan-African revolution for global justice by daring, so early in his tenure of holding office, to stake his political career on open identification with the foremost Pan-Afrikanist freedom-fighting man of destiny. To appreciate the remarkable bravery in this feat of President Mills, we must always bear in mind that the politico-ideological legacy of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah is still being deemed by most reactionary as well as opportunistic forces not only on the Right, but also on the pseudo-Left of the political spectrum, throughout Africa and the rest of the world today, as the most dangerous pan-Africanist revolutionary weapon for effectively combating imperialism and definitively winning global justice for 'the wretched of the earth'. Nobody who seriously identifies openly with the Nkrumah legacy, particularly at the helm of the neocolonialist state machinery of imperialism in Africa as we have in Ghana today, will have a smooth ride in any governmental office.

These hugely important factors make it greatly possible for a qualitatively different type of relationship to be imposed by our progressive forces between the government and people of Ghana on the one hand, and the IMF and the World Bank and their global capitalist bosses of imperialism on the other. We can do so by working our hardest in building principled unity, eschewing sectarianism, careerist opportunism and self-defeating egomania. This will enable us to pool our resources and our rich diversity of mass organisations, networks and campaigns locally, nationally and internationally together so as to establish an impregnable, formidable and powerful watch of emergent revolutionary-democratic people power over transactions between the government of Ghana and the IMF and World Bank and all other external and internal forces of reaction, with a view to ensuring the transparent defence of the best interests of the masses of our Ghanaian people at home and abroad. This is mostly what our progressive forces, objectively taking our real strengths and weaknesses into account, can do amidst our current circumstances today and into the near future.

One thing some of us, from the knowledge we have gained in our modest acquisition of revolutionary theory and engagement in revolutionary practice at home and abroad for decades, must now candidly say out loudly, truthfully and clearly, particularly to the hearing of new generations of the seekers of freedom, justice and progress throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa, is this: No government, whatever its radical pedigree of leadership and even with the most revolutionary-sounding rhetoric and programmes of action, is going to be able to successfully steer countries such as Ghana away from dealing with the vampire-likes of the IMF and World Bank and following, to a greater or lesser extent, the neocolonialist diktat of imperialism along the dependent capitalist road of under-development and mal-development, without the proper revolutionary-democratic conscientisation of the masses of our wretched of the earth to rise up to its defence. The institutions and agencies of imperialism cannot be ignored by any kind of government in Ghana until progressive forces have successfully done their mass conscientisational work to the extent that, rising up with their own conscious strength, in their own rich diversity of various forms of organisation and in various modes of resistance, the wretched of the earth are able to self-determinedly propel themselves into the front ranks of a genuine anti-imperialist alliance and enable the best of their own freedom-fighters to become the spearhead and vanguard of the struggle for their own self-emancipation.

PROGRESSIVE FORCES IN GHANA TODAY: AN OVERVIEW

Ghana today has progressive forces of various tendencies which are striving to better organise themselves. Nevertheless, such progressive tendencies so far exist as organised activists only in small groups of mostly petty-bourgeois elements working in cabals. This includes even those with socialist and other revolutionary-sounding names that are largely declarations of intentions in terms of what they are wishing to grow into eventually. They still are very much divorced and, sometimes, even grossly alienated from the masses of our wretched of the earth, unable to seriously combat their own liberalism, and therefore steeped in sectarian cabalist intrigue-weaving, fractious competition and undisciplined amateurism. No wonder, therefore, that they cannot yet be taken seriously as the force capable of victoriously waging the necessary anti-imperialist struggle in Ghana for the true Nkrumaist kind of Pan-African revolution that will triumphantly propel our country successfully towards 21st century socialism.

Until we can get our revolutionary organisational tasks correctly done, and demonstrate that with the proven results of drawing millions of the masses of our wretched of the earth from the grassroots into independent revolutionary struggle, transforming revolutionary ideas into the material force of masses in motions of revolutionary practice, with the expression of their own revolutionary creativity in a rich diversity of various forms of organisation and modes of resistance even beyond our preconceived thoughts, top-down control and scholastic drawing board prescriptions, the small groups of activists of various progressive tendencies among Ghanaians at home and abroad will have to face the realities of our circumstances as they actually are in our here-and-now. That must embrace the very clear recognition of the need for us to have a multi-pronged approach, including the prioritisation of grassroots mass conscientisational work, alongside giving our critical support to like-minded elements whenever they happen to be in pro-democracy regimes with some considerable doses of genuine patriotic fervour and justice-leaning 'rule-of-Law' decency, such as we now appear to fortunately have in Professor Fiifi Atta Mills and John Mahama at the helm of the new NDC Government in Ghana today.

POSITIVE ACTION POINTS FOR CHANGE-MAKING IN GHANA'S POLITICAL ECONOMY

Having drawn attention to these factors, we proceed to now candidly put forward the following positive action points of working in the sphere of political economy towards change-making in Ghana from an Nkrumaist perspective. We do so, by way of reminder, with the strongest emphasis on the above-mentioned exhortation of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, which Amílcar Cabral also reiterated as: 'Claim no easy victories. Tell no lies.' The positive action points are as follows:

- 1) Recognition of the economy of Ghana as an integral part of the African domains of the colonial and neocolonial capitalist exploitation of the world, mainly by globalising European imperialism, which now has updated its European Union's grand policy of a global Europe, and competing in the world in order to exert an even tighter neocolonial capitalist stranglehold upon Africa in the wake of its currently escalating, multidimensional crisis.

- 2) Effective, durable change can only happen when radical transformation in Ghana becomes part of an all-African people’s national democratic revolutionary process to complete the Pan-African national liberation revolution by gearing it towards a true socialist orientation so as to be able to thoroughly eradicate the vestiges of colonialism and overthrow the neocolonialist domination of imperialism throughout the continent and the diaspora of Africa. This means changing towards the direction of 21st century socialism the entirety of our politico-ideological, economic and socio-cultural development, with the commanding heights of the economy of Ghana and most of the continent and diaspora of Africa being put, under the leadership of the true All-Afrikan People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP) envisaged by Nkrumah, in the people power control of a new state machinery of people’s revolutionary democracy. This shall function primarily to unify the efforts of African progressive forces all over the world into concertedly building a super powerful Union of People’s Democratic Republics of Afrika, which some of us choose to call MAATUBUNTUMAN. This must be understood in the light of the Nkrumaist axiom of seeking first the political kingdom, in order to first and foremost secure in Ghana and/or some other 'liberated zones' throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa, the authentic people power of the African personality with which the other battles for a genuine people-centred economy and other things can effectively be won for an irreversible victory of our Pan-African revolution for global justice, geared towards the successful achievement of 21st century socialism.

- 3) Work towards MAATUBUNTUMAN in Ghana today demands giving truthful Nkrumaist critical support to the pro-Nkrumah tendency of President Mills, not only in words but more so in deeds, and doing so strategically and tactfully in order to consolidate the principled unity of all genuinely progressive tendencies within and beyond the NDC around Professor Mills and John Mahama. That is why some of us have decided to support the initiative of the Operation GHANADIKAN which is seeking to rally the widest possible array of the masses of our Ghanaian people, together with all other interested progressive forces at home and abroad, so as to inject grassroots dynamism into galvanising support for President Atta Mills in his change-making endeavours, particularly in the socio-economic and cultural spheres. We share the view of those who deem such initiatives to be very much needed now, in order to draw greater numbers of the masses of our Ghanaian people at home and abroad into working together with progressive forces within and beyond the NDC, towards fulfilling the Nkrumaist vision of Ghana's strengthening herself, through African personality empowerment, into becoming the impregnable bridgehead of Pan-African community regeneration for sustainable world development in furtherance of global justice for all.

- 4) Without a thorough grasping, in its wider meaning, of the Pan-Africanist revolutionary conceptualisation of the struggle for global justice as it elucidates Nkrumah's axiom about seeking first the political kingdom in terms of starting to lay the strongest possible foundations for building true people power in enemy as well as contested zones throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa, there can be no successful change of anything in the economy, let alone other spheres of life, in Ghana today. Moreover, this is a prerequisite for any attempt at a radical departure from the implementation of the policies dictated to Ghana as one of the peripheral neocolonial domains of the metropoles of European imperialism through its institutions, agencies and networks of capitalist globalisation such as the IMF and the so-called World Bank. Any premature attempt of wishful thinking to spontaneously depart from implementing the prescriptions of the IMF and the World Bank and similar institutions of the global capitalist diktat of imperialism to Ghana and other African countries, without the necessary mass organisational work at local, national and international levels by progressive forces, will only result in terrible disasters even worse than those caused by previous misadventures such as the Ethiopian experience with the Derg, the Sankara experience in Burkina Faso and the Ghanaian experience of the so-called '31st December' revolutionary process. Indeed, some of us do entertain fears that any reckless adventurism which allows agent provocateurs from the mushrooming pseudo-revolutionary cabals within and beyond the pro-Nkrumah movement to do the neocolonialist dirty work of imperialism by undermining the presidency of Professor Atta Mills, as the opportunistic taking advantage by those who recently tried in vain to cause mischief with the so-called Yahuda Security Company Palaver had threatened to do, may only plunge Ghana into the reactionary bloodbath of a situation such as what occurred under President Salvador Allende in Chile in the 1970s.

- 5) There must be a full grasping of the most vitally important of all our points: the conscientisation of the masses of our wretched of the earth, including the independent revolutionary democratic organisation of the workers, poor peasant-farmers, impoverished women, destitute youth and students and all other Mmoborowa sections of our population, and involving not only political but also collectivising economic production formations such as cooperatives, community and other social enterprises as well as a wide range of not-for-profit ventures in grassroots enterprising creativity, as part of the plans of Operation GHANADIKAN. These must be pursued vigorously with immediate urgency from now on and made by progressive forces to take off well before any pressure is mounted upon President Fiifi Atta Mills to stop giving priority to dealing with the IMF and the World Bank and similar institutions and governments of imperialism. Indeed, it is my own candid opinion that, until our progressive forces at home and abroad have done what is expected of us as spelt out above, we must actively encourage President Mills and his government to prioritise neocolonialist fire-fighting dealings with all the powers and institutions of imperialism, upon the indispensable condition of doing so with as much transparency as can possibly be agreed upon with them so as to shed local, national and international limelight on such transactions in the full glare, not only of the masses of our Ghanaian people, but also of the entire world, particularly of all the Pan-African and other contingents of the global justice movement. Otherwise, it will be the height of agent provocateur incitement to disaster, which shall certainly play into the dirty neocolonialist hands of imperialism, as witnessed to some extent in Zimbabwe, to go into headlong confrontation with imperialism, especially on economic matters, without having prepared well in advance for it locally, nationally and internationally. The most vital of all such preparations is facilitating the genuine people’s democratic revolutionary conscientisation of the masses from our African personality perspective, including the galvanisation of the politico-ideological, economic and cultural reorganisation of the masses for their own community self-defence in its broadest possible manifestations. By this we mean reorganisation in terms of modernising our traditional Asafo formations into better equipped communities of resistance for self-defence ideologically, geopolitically, economically, culturally, morally, psychologically, spiritually and more within the context of Pan-African community regeneration for sustainable world development in furtherance of global justice.

The initiative in this comprehensive grassroots reorganisation of the masses for holistic community self-defence, in the present circumstances of Ghana, must be seen as the revolutionary duty of independently self-organising progressive forces, in the first and foremost instance, rather than the priority responsibility of President Mills and his government. Of course, we must strategically and tactfully exert pressure upon President Mills and his government to give due recognition, advice and support to the self-reliant economic organisational creativity efforts of the masses of our Mmoborowas in particular, demanding provisions such as favourable small credit and loan schemes, appropriate technological facilitation, capacity building, global citizenship educational link-networking and other conscientisational and logistical support, as for example is being requested by the likes of the peasant-farmers’ networking leader, Asafobaatan Komla Dwamena of the NGOYISUSU-Adieyiekuafo Brigade part of the newly emergent ADIEYIEMANFO Movement of Positive Action Networks.

This is the time to correct one of the biggest mistakes most of us have been making as far as organising for revolution in Ghana and other parts of the continent and diaspora of Africa is concerned. Most of us have focused more upon the need for political organisations and have ignored, oftentimes even denied, the importance of and the need for, other forms of organisation, particularly economic, cultural and faith–spiritual forms of organisation. We have glossed over the fact that all freedom-fighting political organisations that have successfully battled to spearhead victorious revolutions, more so those of socialist orientation, including the Bolsheviks and the communist parties of China, Vietnam and Nepal, have always had, even during periods of armed struggle, a wide array of economic, cultural and even sports formations to support their political organisations, usually in an arrangement of concentric circles! The necessity for economic and cultural formations to enhance the strength, mass outreach and multi-tasking efficiency of revolutionary political organisations cannot be denied, particularly within our African context. Amílcar Cabral has made one of the best cases for revolutionary formations of Pan-African resistance culture to strengthen freedom-fighting political organisations in his brilliant Eduardo Mondlane Memorial Lecture on 'National Liberation and Culture', which he delivered on 20 February 1970 at Syracuse University, Syracuse, in New York, USA. The case for economic forms of organisation as an integral part of the broad concentric circular networks of our movement of resistance to the colonial and neocolonial exploitation of imperialism now has to be strongly made. We do not have to wait to build such economic forms of organisation until after the victory of our revolution. Indeed, collective forms of economic organisation, such as cooperatives and community and other social enterprises, can themselves become very powerful schools of the theory and practice of revolution, experiential lifelong learning schools of revolutionary socialism, in addition to helping to raise funds, to generate resources and to build the political economy of our resistance movement. The case for building such collectivising forms of economic organisation as revolutionary schools to enhance not only the political might but also the ideological strength of our freedom-fighting movement, particularly in the most decisive times of the heated contest for power between our new order of the revolution and the old status quo of reaction, can be illuminated also in terms of the following pertinent axiom of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah: 'Revolution has two aspects. Revolution is a revolution against an old order; and it is also a contest for a new order. The Marxist emphasis on the determining force of the material circumstances of life is correct. But I would like also to give great emphasis to the determining power of ideology. A revolutionary ideology is not merely negative. It is not a mere conceptual refutation of a dying social order, but a positive creative theory, the guiding light of the new emerging social order.' (Kwame Nkrumah, 'Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonization', 1970)

CONCLUSION

Now, therefore, is not the time for our progressive forces to be demanding of President Mills to stop dealing with the IMF, the so-called World Bank and other similar institutions and agencies of imperialism. Now is the time for our progressive forces, particularly those of true Nkrumaist orientation, to help in diverse ways and means in the organisational, politico-ideological, economic, cultural and spiritual arming of the masses of our wretched of the earth not only in Ghana but also throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa, indeed all over the world, in accord with our contemporary demands of pan-African community regeneration for sustainable world development in furtherance of global justice. Doing so effectively will inevitably lead to the time when the long-suffering masses of our Mmoborowas, at their own chosen moment, shall begin, with their own strength of true people power, to make it not only unnecessary, but also impossible, for anybody in government throughout the continent and diaspora of Africa to prioritise dealing, in typical neocolonialist fashion, with the institutions, agencies and networks of imperialism, with a view to obtaining foreign prescriptions as solutions to the developmental problems of Africa and the worldwide community of African people. Then will they set themselves in irreversible motion along the revolutionary path charted by the likes of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah towards MAATUBUNTUMAN in the 'Forward ever, backward never' pursuit of genuine pan-African community regeneration for sustainable world development in furtherance of global justice for all!

* Kofi Mawuli Klu is the chief executive commissioner of PANAFRIINDABA, the All-Afrikan People’s Community Consultative Commission in Europe.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.